Trump’s crypto-frenzied inauguration weekend makes first family billions of dollars richer
Snoop Dogg was the lead act at the first-ever Crypto Inaugural Ball held in Washington on Friday evening
MacKenzie Sigalos
As the crypto industry celebrates the arrival of a new administration in Washington, D.C., nobody is taking quicker advantage of the coming changes than the person leading the charge: President Donald J. Trump.
On Friday night, crypto A-listers rubbed elbows with political elites and members of Trump’s inner circle at the Crypto Ball, held at the opulent Mellon Auditorium, just down the street from the White House.
Meanwhile, Trump’s net worth was about to explode from an asset that, up to that point, didn’t exist. The same night of the party, the incoming president launched $TRUMP, a meme coin built on the Solana platform. Its market cap over the weekend climbed past $14 billion. Like with other meme coins, there’s no underlying product. Trump told his followers in a social media post, “It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!”
The website for $TRUMP says 80% of the coins are held by the Trump Organization and affiliates.
Inside the Crypto Ball were some of the leaders of the platforms allowing ordinary investors to buy into Trump’s newest project. They included Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell.
Trump wasn’t done after one token.
On Sunday came the introduction of $MELANIA, named after the first lady. The coin quickly spiked more than 40%, surpassing $2 billion in value. Both the Trump and Melania coins have dropped significantly from their highs.
Then there’s World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance project endorsed by the Trump family, which hiked its token price from 1.5 cents to 5 cents and released an additional 5 billion tokens for sale. The project, initially launched in September, has raised more than $300 million in total sales so far, according to blockchain firm Arkham Intelligence.
The Trump family gets 75% of World Liberty’s crypto coin revenue, according to the project’s founding document. On-chain data shows millions of dollars worth of token transfers to Coinbase’s institutional custody provider.
“We’re making routine movements of our crypto holdings as part of regular treasury management, payment of fees and expenses, and to address working capital requirements,” World Liberty said in a statement.
CNBC reached out to Donald and Melania Trump earlier Monday and didn’t receive a response.
‘Reign of terror’
In the period of 48 hours, the Trump family’s net worth surged by billions of dollars, based on holdings of its just-launched digital assets, underscoring the unregulated nature of cryptocurrencies and the president’s ability to use his fame, power and newfound partnership with the nascent industry to enrich himself, his family and his allies at the flip of a switch.
Broader market enthusiasm has been expressed in the price of bitcoin, which surged to an all-time high hours before the inauguration to nearly $110,000. Crypto industry leaders and investors emerged as some of Trump’s biggest supporters in the campaign in an effort to influence future policies and to ease the restrictive regulations imposed during the Biden administration. In July, Trump delivered the keynote at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
Digital asset entrepreneurs, politicians, and members of Trump’s inner circle hit the red carpet at the first-ever Crypto Inaugural Ball in Washington on Friday.
MacKenzie Sigalos
“The reign of terror against crypto is over,” David Sacks, a prominent Silicon Valley investor and the new White House AI and crypto czar, told the packed D.C. ballroom on Friday night. His comments were met with applause that echoed beneath the Mellon Auditorium’s soaring columns.
Sacks, an earlier Trump critic who said the events of Jan. 6, 2021, had “disqualified” him from being a candidate at the national level, threw his weight behind Trump last year. He hosted a high-profile fundraiser at his San Francisco mansion in June and regularly promoted the Republican candidate on the popular “All-In” podcast.
“The beginning of innovation in America for crypto has just begun,” Sacks added on Friday.
On X, formerly Twitter, conversations were lighting up about the new $TRUMP coin. There was plenty of skepticism from those in and around the industry.
“Trump needs to fire his crypto advisors, from top to bottom and replace with people who know what they are doing,” wrote Gabor Gurbacs, founder of digital asset firm Pointsville, in a post on X. “The memecoins cost the US, the presidency and his family a lot of credibility and the consequences haven’t even started.”
Mark Cuban, the billionaire former tech entrepreneur and part owner of the Dallas Mavericks, commented on the apparent lawlessness of it all. Cuban, a longtime independent who became a vocal supporter of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, said the coins are particularly harmful to the crypto industry in its effort to prove its legitimacy.
“Hello every scam targeted at everyone and anyone who has no clue about crypto,” he wrote.
But at the pre-inauguration party, Trump’s new coin wasn’t much of a topic. Rather, the chatter centered on the broader implications of Trump’s policies, which promised to dismantle years of regulatory gridlock in the Biden administration.
“Two years ago, everyone thought crypto was dead,” said one attendee who asked not to be named in order to speak candidly on the topic. “A year ago, we were begging for help, and this weekend, we’re on top of the world.”
Crypto firms made substantial contributions to Trump’s inaugural fund, signaling their enthusiasm. Ripple donated $5 million in digital tokens, while Coinbase, Kraken, and Circle each gave $1 million. Online brokerage Robinhood contributed $2 million.
Inside the first-ever Crypto Ball at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington ahead of the Donald Trump Inauguration.
MacKenzie Sigalos
Coinbase and Kraken have both been battling the SEC in court. Robinhood received a Wells Notice in May related to its U.S. crypto business, which is typically one of the final steps before the SEC issues formal charges. Ripple has been in a years-long legal fight with SEC and outgoing Chairman Gary Gensler.
“The question now is, what do we do with this momentum?” said Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty, who attended the Friday night festivities. “How do we take that momentum and move forward to really create the promise that I think this new administration has of making the U.S. the crypto capital of the world?”
Alderoty wants to see a coalition formed to discuss unified policy priorities.
“Ultimately, Congress will own the policy, and we can’t dictate to Congress what the policy should be,” Alderoty said. “It would be great if, ahead of that, in the face of the most crypto-friendly Congress we’ve ever had, there could be some alignment on what the priorities are,” Alderoty said, noting that the industry has splintered in the past when proposals have been introduced.
Inside the Crypto Ball
There was a hefty dose of lawmaker support at the party, all from the Republican side of the aisle. House Speaker Mike Johnson was there, along with Senators Marsha Blackburn, Ted Cruz and Cynthia Lummis. Former House members French Hill and Patrick McHenry arrived to show their support.
Cleanspark CEO Zach Bradford, who has been meeting with Trump in private roundtables to discuss bitcoin mining, said he spoke with Howard Lutnick, Trump’s pick to be Secretary of Commerce, at the event.
“We talked about bitcoin mining and how bitcoin, but also bitcoin mining, can be a central point of commerce,” Bradford told CNBC.
Bradford said he emphasized to Lutnick the potential for bitcoin mining to be a significant economic driver.
“It’s a positive revenue generator from a net production perspective,” Bradford said. “But we’re also contributing significant tax revenues for the states where we operate.”
Bradford said Lutnick is “excited about it,” describing him as “somebody that gets bitcoin.”
Scott Bessent, likely to be the next Treasury secretary, made his way through the main floor of the ballroom and took photos with attendees.
Koh Harada, COO of Aleo, a privacy-focused blockchain, said Bessent was “pretty coy about things, but the fact that he was even there was very interesting.”
Aleo, which has raised over $200 million from investors including SoftBank and Andreessen Horowitz, chose to establish in the U.S. while many rivals opted to launch from offshore jurisdictions like the Cayman Islands as a shield from various regulations.
“We didn’t set up shop in the U.S. on a whim,” Harada said. In talking to a mix of legal and compliance experts, the company realized that “America is the best fertilizer for tech — period,” he said.
Aleo, which combines privacy-focused functionality with smart contract capabilities, has become a go-to resource for other startups looking to return to the U.S., Harada added. The company picked Wyoming, a state known for its crypto-friendly policies.
“Wyoming stood out as the most welcoming state for crypto,” Harada said. “They’ve created forward-thinking policies and are even establishing blockchain research centers at the University of Wyoming.”
It was the side conversations in the MAGA Inc. VIP Reception greenroom where the most significant exchanges of the evening unfolded.
MacKenzie Sigalos
Also in attendance on Friday was MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor, wearing his trademark orange bow tie, a nod to bitcoin’s iconic color. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and top execs at Coinbase, including global policy head Faryar Shirzad, mingled with guests.
The Winklevoss twins chatted in a group that included Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz and his colleague, Sriram Krishnan, who recently left his role as a general partner at the firm to join Sacks’ task force. Bo Hines, Trump’s choice to lead the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, was also present. He’ll report directly to Sacks.
While Snoop Dogg performed in the main ballroom, venture capitalist Katie Haun was engrossed in conversation with Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz. Other musical guests Rick Ross and Soulja Boy, who was charged by the SEC in 2023 for illegally promoting a crypto token without disclosing he was paid, kept the larger crowd entertained.
Guests were issued wristbands based on status. Black wristbands signified general admission and gold allowed entry to a VIP balcony. White bands granted the most exclusive perks. General admission cost $2,500, and some sponsors paid $1 million for access to the greenroom on the ground floor tucked behind the stage in the main ballroom.
Tightly guarded by security, Donald Trump Jr. donned custom MAGA buttons on his shirt as he swiftly made his way into the innermost chamber of the VIP section, a room barricaded by a rotating bouncer and only allowing in certain guests. Along with Sacks, and Speaker Johnson, he could be seen conversing with Fred Thiel, CEO of mining company MARA Holdings.
Thiel shared details of a blockchain initiative his company had launched earlier that day with Johnson, an effort designed to symbolize the intersection of crypto and politics.
“We minted a block on the blockchain with a portrait of President Trump, created entirely from transactions,” Thiel said.
Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, with Mara CEO Fred Thiel. Johnson seen texting President Donald Trump a photo of the Trump47 bitcoin block minted by Mara earlier that day.
Fred Thiel
The so-called Trump47 block embedded Trump’s headshot into the Bitcoin blockchain, creating a lasting digital tribute to the president.
“We released it Friday morning, and it went viral,” Thiel said. He added that Johnson “was so impressed” that he texted Trump a picture of it.
Tracy Hoyos-López, a former California prosecutor and one of the people credited with turning Trump pro-bitcoin, was also at the event.
“Don’t mess with crypto,” Hoyos-López, who helped to plan the evening’s celebration, told CNBC while Snoop Dogg was performing his live set. “Our event is a symbol of who we are in the world.”
WATCH: Bitcoin surges past $100,000
Environment
The global critical minerals race is heating up — and rare earths stocks are skyrocketing
A wheel loader takes ore to a crusher at the MP Materials rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, California, U.S. January 30, 2020.
Steve Marcus | Reuters
The emergence of critical minerals as a new arena of geopolitical competition has coincided with a dizzying rally in U.S.-listed rare earths mining stocks.
Despite paring gains in recent weeks, shares of Critical Metals have advanced 241% over the last three months, while NioCorp Developments, Energy Fuels and Idaho Strategic Resources have all surged well above 100% over the same period.
The eye-watering gains are even more remarkable year-to-date. Energy Fuels’ stock price has quadrupled through the first 10 months of the year, while NioCorp Developments’ shares have nearly quintupled.
Rare earths have come to the fore as a key bargaining chip in the ongoing geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest economies.
Tony Sage, CEO of Critical Metals, which has one of the world’s largest rare earths deposits in southern Greenland, described the rally of U.S.-listed rare earths miners as evidence of a major market boom.
“I talk of it like this, I mean, there have been four big booms. You had the gold boom in the 19th century, the oil boom in the 20th century, in the early 21st century you had the tech boom — and now you’ve got the rare earths boom,” Sage told CNBC by telephone.
“But the rare earths boom is the future. It will power all of the above.”
We are going from a philosophy of ‘fill the gap’ through imports to ‘mine the gap’ domestically or regionally.
Audun Martinsen
Head of supply chain research at Rystad Energy
Rare earths refer to 17 elements on the periodic table that have an atomic structure that gives them special magnetic properties. These materials are vital components to a vast array of modern technologies, from everyday electronics, such as smartphones, to electric vehicles and military equipment.
China, which has a near-monopoly on rare earths, recently threatened to expand its export controls on the elements to further leverage its dominance of the supply chain. However, following an in-person meeting in South Korea on Thursday between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Beijing agreed to delay the Oct. 9 export controls by one year.
U.S.-listed rare earths stocks rallied on the news, although analysts remain skeptical about whether the apparent trade truce can offer long-term relief.
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping as they hold a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea, October 30, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
“As in all booms, there were a lot of oil companies that couldn’t find oil and there were a lot of gold companies that couldn’t find gold. And I’m sure there are going to be a lot of rare earths companies that won’t make it either — because when there’s a boom, there’s hype. And when there’s hype, there’s overexuberance in investing,” Critical Metals’ Sage said.
“It’s not a straight rise up. It’s a jagged line, but the trend is in the right direction if you’ve got the right project in the right place, and you’ve got the right partners,” he added.
‘A much bigger and longer supercycle’
Kevin Das, senior technical consultant at New Frontier Minerals, an Australian-based rare earths explorer, agreed with Sage’s description of a rare earths market boom, while acknowledging the likelihood of stock price pullbacks.
“People are saying we’re in an uptrend on what is a bigger supercycle and some of the evidence behind that is there has been low commodity prices for some time, there’s been underinvestment. And now, with the advent of AI … we’re going to see a much bigger and longer supercycle,” Das told CNBC by telephone.
Das drew parallels between the Biden administration’s support of clean energy projects, which coincided with a rally in lithium-related stocks, and the Trump administration’s backing of rare earths.
Shares of Critical Metals over the last three months.
“In the last nine to 10 months that Trump has been in power, he’s talked about annexing Greenland, he’s talked about doing a deal with Ukraine for rare earths and then the real clincher was this equity deal with MP Materials,” Das said.
“So, I think the runway over the next two to three years is going to be very fruitful,” he added.
Not everyone is as bullish on the outlook for rare earths-related stocks, however.
Audun Martinsen, head of supply chain research at Rystad Energy, said the recent surge in equity prices reflected a mix of geopolitical tension, strategic policy support and speculative momentum.
“Rare earths have clearly moved to the center of global industrial strategy, vital for defense, EVs and clean energy, but this looks more like the early stages of a structural shift than a mature ‘fourth boom,'” Martinsen told CNBC by email.
Neodymium is displayed at the Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech Co. factory in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China, on Wednesday, May 5, 2010.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“We are going from a philosophy of ‘fill the gap’ through imports to ‘mine the gap’ domestically or regionally,” he continued. “It will be a lengthy, expensive and rocky path forward as adequate, cost-effective resources and element diversity are complex to get full control over.”
Clean energy transition
Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia University, said there were two clear factors at work as global competition intensifies to secure the supply of critical minerals — one structural and the other political.
“The structural: Despite whatever political attempts there may be to stop or derail things, the clean-energy transition is happening — and it is accelerating — and yes, it depends on a number of critical minerals, whose prices are bound to jump,” Wagner told CNBC by email.
China, for instance, is the low-cost supplier of many of these minerals, Wagner said, noting that the Asian giant’s mineral dominance is by no means an accident.
“Beijing has invested heavily in green industrial policy for years, focusing on the full, integrated supply chain. That’s where politics enters,” Wagner said.
“Some attempts to onshore supply chains are eminently justified for national security and other reasons, and those attempts will increase prices and stocks of U.S. mining companies. Some of what we see, of course, is merely the current politics or erratic trade wars and the like,” he added.
For the last few weeks, we’ve been running a sidebar survey about how much Electrek readers think it would cost to add EV charging systems to their homes. After receiving over twenty-four hundred responses, here’s what you told us.
In our previous survey, we asked readers why they chose to install solar panels at home. In the recap, many of our commenters mentioned having their systems systems pull double duty — charging home backup batteries and topping off their electric cars. That got us thinking: as more and more first-time EV owners look into the many benefits of home charging, how much do they expect to pay for home charging?
Based on over 2,400 responses, this is what you told us.
What do you expect to pay for home charging?
The most positive surprise was that more than a third of Electrek readers who responded to the poll already had 240V outlets in their garage, so they expected to pay effectively $0 – their homes are EV ready now!
Of the remaining 64%, 44% were fairly evenly split between a relatively straightforward ~$500-1,000 wiring job with a few wiring or panel upgrades while only about 18% expected to spend over $1,000 due to having an older home, a detached garage, or for some other (apparently pricey and/or inconvenient) reason.
Navigating the questions
Just like you would for home solar, we’d recommend getting a quote from several installers before making a decision. One of our trusted partners, Qmerit, offers a quote-sourcing service called PowerHouse. The service scans pricing from thousands of completed electrification installations across North America to provide the best quotes that take regional variability into account and work with homeowners to “bundle” chargers, installation, and even batteries.
America has arrived at an inflection point in which all of the technical, policy and financial elements are in place to support a societal shift toward whole-home electrification. Now what’s needed is a comprehensive way to assemble these complex elements into a simple, financeable, home-energy retrofit that makes it easier to implement.
QMERIT FOUNDER TRACY PRICE
Qmerit says its new bundling program can flag the potential for federal, state, and local utility incentives like the ones we’ve covered from Illinois utility ComEd and others that can reduce or even eliminate the upfront costs of home installations for many.
Original content from Electrek.
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Following a lawsuit brought against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) by major heavy truck manufacturers over California’s emissions requirements, CARB has struck back with fresh lawsuit of its own alleging that the manufacturers violated the terms of the 2023 Clean Truck Partnership agreement to sell cleaner vehicles.
Daimler Truck North America, International Motors, Paccar and Volvo Group North America sued the California Air Resources Board in federal court this past August, seeking to invalidate the Clean Truck Partnership emissions reduction deal they signed with the state in 2023 to move away from traditional trucks and toward zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). The main point of the lawsuit was that, because the incoming Trump Administration rolled back Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policies that had previously given individual states the right to set their own environmental and emissions laws, the truck makers shouldn’t have to honor the deals signed with individual states.
“Plaintiffs are caught in the crossfire: California demands that OEMs follow preempted laws; the United States maintains such laws are illegal and orders OEMs to disregard them,” the lawsuit reads. “Accordingly, Plaintiff OEMs file this lawsuit to clarify their legal obligations under federal and state law and to enjoin California from enforcing standards preempted by federal law.”
After several weeks of waiting for a response, we finally have one: CARB is suing the OEMs right back, claiming that the initial suit proves the signing manufacturers, “(have) unambiguously stated that they do not intend to comply.”
They want to sell Americans more diesel
In its lawsuit, CARB argues that monetary damages alone would not make the people of the State of California whole as far as damages are concerned, citing that the stated goal of the 2023 Clean Truck Partnership was, “to achieve emissions reductions that cannot be measured strictly in financial terms,” according to ACT-News.
The agency is asking the court to compel the truck companies to perform on their 2023 obligations or, failing that, to allow CARB to rescind the contract and recover its costs. A hearing on the truck makers’ request for a preliminary injunction was held Friday, with another court date set for November 21, when CARB will seek to dismiss the case brought forth by the truck brands. The outcome of these cases could shape how state and federal government agencies cooperation on emissions rules in the future.
You can read the full 22-page lawsuit, below, then let us know what you think of CARB’s response (and their chances of succeeding) in the comments.
SOURCES: CARB; via ACT-News, Trucking Dive.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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