coindesk.com
A filing from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics shows that former president Donald Trump has made anywhere from $100,001 to $1 million from sales of Trump-branded non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The filings were first reported by ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
The 45,000 digital collectibles featuring the 45th president's likeness were released in December and sold out within a day. The collection has spiked in price over the past few weeks in response to news of the former president’s arraignment in New York.
According to the filing, submitted on Friday, Trump holds the position of "manager, president, secretary and treasurer" at CIC Digital LLC and CIC Ventures LLC. On the official Trump Trading Cards website, it says that CIC Digital LLC allowed NFT INT LLC, the company behind the NFT project, to use Trump's likeness, name and image under a paid licensing agreement.
The filing lists income from CIC Digital LLC as "NFTs" that raked in between $100,001 to $1 million. It also states that CIC Ventures LLC received over $5 million from speaking engagements.
According to on-chain data from NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam, the project has done over $19 million in sales since its inception. However, over the last week, the number of active wallets holding Trump NFTs has declined 13% to 208.
Data from OpenSea shows that 65% of collectors hold only one NFT, while another 23% hold between two and three. Several wallets hold over 100 NFTs. In addition, 1,000 NFTs were not made available to the public and are being held in a Gnosis Safe Wallet, a multi-signature smart contract wallet that requires multiple users to approve of any asset movement.
Following the paper trail
It's not entirely clear how Trump was able to rake in up to $1 million from sales of the NFT collection. While the official website says that none of the money earned from the collection is going directly to Trump's reelection campaign, the filings indicate that Trump has still been able to personally pocket a generous slice of the earnings.
According to OpenSea, there is a 10% creator royalty fee on secondary sales of the NFTs. Currently, the highest offer on a Trump NFT is 10 ETH, or about $20,000. Most of the offers appear to be in the range of 0.3 ETH (about $630).
Twitter users and crypto enthusiasts have been eager to connect the financial dots since the project was released, finding evidence of stolen art and shady wallet addresses. In addition, NFT INT LLC has a registered address at a UPS Store in Park City, Utah, though the LLC itself is incorporated in Wyoming.
Journalist Kurt Eichenwald did some digging and found that the LLC has an address at a building in Cheyenne, Wyoming, that has reportedly been linked in the past to shell companies and global scandals.
In addition, Bill Zanker, a serial entrepreneur who co-wrote a book with Trump, has been linked to the NFT project and pledged to share "a significant portion of any revenues from sales" with the former president, according to The New York Times.