(L to R) Eric Trump, former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. attend a remembrance ceremony on the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center at Ground Zero, in New York City on September 11, 2024.
Adam Gray | Afp | Getty Images
A political action committee supporting former President Donald Trump has raised about $7.5 million in cryptocurrencies.
Contributors to the Trump 47 joint fundraising committee donated bitcoin, ether and XRP, as well as the U.S. dollar pegged stablecoins tether and USDC, to the GOP presidential nominee’s campaign, according to a Federal Election Commission filing submitted on Tuesday.
The PAC said the latest filing covered donations in the period of July 1 through Sept. 30, but numbers included cumulative contributions.
With the 2024 election just three weeks away and the contest in a virtual dead heat according to polling averages, Trump is counting on a hefty dose of funding from the crypto community. The former president positioned himself as the pro-crypto candidate in this election, a reversal from his previous stance during his time in the White House. In May, he became the first major presidential candidate to accept donations in digital tokens.
Nearly half of all the corporate money flowing into the election has come from the crypto industry, according to a recent report from the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen. The sum was raised from a mix of contributors, with Coinbase, Ripple, and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz accounting for most of those business donations. The industry has raised roughly 13 times the amount it brought in during the last presidential election year.
At least 18 donors gave more than $5.5 million in bitcoin to Trump 47, the filing shows. Another seven people gave around $1.5 million in ether.
Contributors hailed from more than 15 states, including a few battlegrounds, plus the American territory of Puerto Rico.Their professions include Lockheed Martin software engineer, Duthie Power Services sales engineer, and a producer for Esperanza Entertainment.
David Bailey, CEO of media group BTC Inc., gave more than $498,000 in bitcoin. Bailey was part of a small army of bitcoin fanatics who indoctrinated Trump in all things bitcoin and helped turned him from a skeptic to an evangelist. The process culminated in Trump headlining the biggest bitcoin conference of the year in Nashville in July.
Trump said in his keynote that his campaign had raised $25 million from the crypto industry, though he didn’t specify the split between digital tokens and dollar donations.
Among the new donors is Chase Herro, one of the co-founders of the Trump family’s new crypto project World Liberty Financial. The platform, which has been described as a decentralized bank where customers will be encouraged to borrow, lend and invest in crypto, launched its token sale on Tuesday.
So far, more than $10.2 million worth of WLFI tokens have been sold, far short of the initial fundraise goal of $300 million. The launch was plagued with technical issues, including the repeated crashing of the website where the sale was taking place.
Mike Belshe, CEO of digital asset security company BitGo, has contributed almost $100,000 in bitcoin.
Brian Murray, a partner at Craft Ventures, gave $6,560 in bitcoin. Craft was founded by pro-Trump venture capitalist David Sacks.
Kresus Labs founder Trevor Traina gave over $25,000 in ether, Chainstone Labs CEO Bruce Fenton donated $60,000 in bitcoin, and Gary Cardone of Cardone Digital Ventures contributed over $840,000 in bitcoin.
While Larsen shares the crypto industry’s criticism of SEC Chair Gary Gensler and the aggressive approach the Biden administration has taken towards companies in the space, the Ripple chairman said he has more confidence in Harris, in part because she’s from the Bay Area.
“She knows people who have grown up in the innovation economy her whole life,” Larsen told CNBC in an interview this week. “So I think she gets it at a fundamental level, in a way that I think the Biden folks were just not paying attention to, or maybe just didn’t make the connection between empowering workers and making sure you have American champions dominating their industries.”
On the pro-Trump side, billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have led the charge, with an aggregate contribution of nearly $1.1 million each. Some of that money was refunded in September because it exceeded the maximum allowed.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifies during a remote video hearing held by subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee on “Social Media’s Role in Promoting Extremism and Misinformation” in Washington, U.S., March 25, 2021.
Handout | Via Reuters
Block jumped more than 5% on Monday, leading a rally in shares of fintech companies as analysts downplayed the threat of JPMorgan Chase’s reported plan to charge data aggregators for access to customer financial information.
The recovery followed steep declines on Friday, after Bloomberg reported that JPMorgan had circulated pricing sheets outlining potential fees for aggregators like Plaid and Yodlee, which connect fintech platforms to users’ bank data.
In a note to clients on Monday, Evercore ISI analysts said the potential new expenses were “far from a ‘business model-breaking’ cost increase.”
In addition to Block’s rise, PayPal climbed 3.5% on Monday after sliding Friday. Robinhood and Shift4 recorded modest gains.
Broader market momentum helped fuel some of the rebound. The Nasdaq closed at a record, and crypto rallied, with bitcoin climbing past $123,000. Ether, solana, and other altcoins also gained.
Evercore ISI’s analysts said that even if JPMorgan’s changes were implemented, the most immediate effect would be a slight bump in the cost of one-time account setups — perhaps 50 to 60 cents.
Morgan Stanley echoed that view, writing that any impact would be “negligible,” especially for large fintechs that rely more on debit, credit, or stored balances than bank account pulls for transactions.
PayPal doesn’t anticipate much short-term impact, according to a person with knowledge of the issue. The person, who asked not to be named in order to speak about private financial matters, noted that PayPal relies on aggregators primarily for account verification and already has long-term pricing contracts in place.
While smaller fintechs that depend heavily on automated clearing house (ACH) rails or Open Banking frameworks for onboarding and compliance may face real pressure if the fees take effect, analysts said the larger platforms are largely insulated.
The global EV market is still charging ahead. According to new numbers from global research firm Rho Motion, 9.1 million EVs were sold worldwide in the first half of 2025, up 28% compared to the same period last year. But not every region is accelerating at the same pace.
China and Europe are doing the heavy lifting
More than half of the world’s EVs this year have been bought in China. That market hit 5.5 million sales in the first six months of 2025 – a 32% jump year-over-year. Around half of new cars bought in China are now electric.
While some Chinese cities’ subsidies have dried up, Rho Motion expects momentum to pick back up later in the year as more funding is released.
In Europe, 2 million EVs were sold in the first half of the year, up 26%. Battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales also rose 26%, thanks in part to affordable models like the Renault 4 (pictured) and 5 entering the market. Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) weren’t far behind, growing 27% year-to-date. Chinese automakers are leaning into PHEVs as a way to work around the EU’s new tariffs on BEVs.
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Spain is leading the pack with EV sales soaring 85% so far this year. Its generous MOVES III incentive program was extended in April and has kept sales strong. The UK and Germany are also seeing solid growth – 32% and 40%, respectively. France, however, is slumping. With subsidies cut, EV sales there have dropped 13%.
North America is stuck in the slow lane
Things aren’t looking quite as bright in North America. EV sales in the US, Canada, and Mexico are up just 3% so far this year.
Mexico is the one bright spot, with a 20% boost. The US is up 6%. But Canada is down a whopping 23%.
And things could get bumpier. On July 4, Trump signed Congress’s big bill into law, which axes all the Inflation Reduction Act EV tax credits. Those consumer credits for EVs now officially end on September 30.
Just over half of the EVs sold in the US this year qualified for those credits. Rho Motion predicts a rush in Q3 before the subsidies disappear – and a decline in sales after that.
Rho Motion data manager Charles Lester said, “With Trump’s latest cuts in his ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ the US could struggle to see any growth in the EV market overall in 2025.”
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Lucid’s electric sedan can drive further, charge faster, and packs more advanced tech than most of the competition. That might explain why it’s leading the segment. The Lucid Air remained the best-selling luxury EV sedan in the US after widening its lead in the Q2.
The Lucid Air is America’s best-selling luxury EV sedan
The 2025 Lucid Air Pure arrived as the “World’s most efficient car” with an EPA-estimated range of 420 miles and a record 146 MPGe.
It just set a new Guinness World Record last week for the longest journey by an electric car after travelling 749 miles (1,205 km) on a single charge.
That record was set in the range-topping Lucid Air Grand Touring model, which is rated for up to 512 miles of EPA-estimated range. On the WLTP scale, it’s rated at 597 miles (960 km). Either way, it still crushed the estimates.
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According to second-quarter sales data, released by Kelley Blue Book on Monday, the Lucid Air is still America’s best-selling luxury EV.
Lucid sold 2,630 Air models in Q2, up 10% from the previous year. Through the first half of 2025, Lucid Air sales are up 17% with 5,094 units sold.
Lucid Air (Source: Lucid)
Tesla, on the other hand, only sold 1,435 Model Ss during the quarter, 71% fewer than it did in Q2 2024. Tesla Model S sales in the US are down 70% through the first half of the year at 2,715.
Although Porsche Taycan sales were up 32% with 1,064 models sold, the significantly upgraded 2025 model year was expected to see even more demand. Porsche has 2,083 Taycans in the US this year, up just 1% from 2024.
Lucid Air Pure interior (Source: Lucid)
Other luxury EV sedans, such as the BMW i5 (1,434), i7 (820), and the Mercedes EQS (498), experienced steep double-digit sales declines year-over-year.
And it’s not just electric luxury sedans. The Lucid Air is currently outselling many gas-powered vehicles in its segment.
Lucid Air (left) and Gravity (right) Source: Lucid
Lucid’s first electric SUV, the Gravity, is also rolling out. Although only five were sold in the second quarter, Lucid is quickly scaling production. Lucid aims to produce 20,000 vehicles this year, more than double the roughly 9,000 it built in 2024.
Earlier today, Lucid’s interim CEO, Marc Winterhoff, confirmed during an interview with Bloomberg that the company expects higher Gravity output in the second half of the year.
The interview was at the grand opening of Panasonic’s new battery cell plant in De Soto, Kansas. Winterhoff said Lucid will start using new cells from the facility, but not until next year.
Lucid’s CEO stressed the importance of establishing a local supply chain, as policy changes under the Trump Administration are taking effect. Lucid and Panasonic are collaborating to localize EV materials, such as graphite. Last month, Lucid secured a multi-year supply agreement with Graphite One for US-sourced Graphite.
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