U.S. Representative Gerald Connolly has called for an investigation into a potential conflict of interest regarding Donald Trump's cryptocurrency projects.
In a letter to the Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the congressman noted that the current president may be profiting from the World Liberty Financial (WLFI) platform and the TRUMP meme token. According to the politician, this potentially violates ethical norms and creates national security risks.
Regarding WLFI, Connolly emphasized that the largest investor in the fund is Tron founder Justin Sun. The Chinese entrepreneur is under SEC investigation for securities fraud. In this case, the possibility of foreign influence also raises questions, the congressman added.
According to him, Sun's purchase of 30 million WLFI tokens allowed the company to exceed its own income threshold, opening up the possibility of transferring money directly to Trump and his family.
"It's troubling that this is not the only cryptocurrency venture the president is involved in," Connolly wrote.
Three days before the inauguration, Trump launched the TRUMP meme coin. At the same time, the Trump Organization, which sells many products under the politician's brand, owns 80% of the tokens, the congressman pointed out.
"Ethics experts have already expressed serious concern that Trump is 'literally cashing in on the presidency by creating financial instruments for people to transfer money to his family in connection with his position,'" Connolly emphasized.
On January 19, the price of TRUMP reached a maximum of $73.43 but collapsed after the politician took office. At the time of writing, the asset is trading at $29 - down 61% from its all-time high.
Whales Made Good Profits on the Trump's Family Coins
ARK Invest founder and CEO Cathie Wood admitted in a Bloomberg interview that she doesn't see "much utility" in the token, other than it being "the president's own meme coin."
"I think in these first days [as president] he's opening the next phase of the crypto revolution," she added.
Her company is not interested in such assets and only holds Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, Wood emphasized. PANews experts analyzed the activity of the 1000 largest investors. According to their estimate, the average purchase volume of TRUMP was $591,000.
Most of the largest token holders bought it at a price below $15. The peak of sales occurred on January 19 in the range of $65-70.
Researchers noted one address that invested $1.09 million in the asset at a rate of $0.18 just a minute after TRUMP's launch. According to incomplete statistics, the wallet's sales volume exceeded $20 million, although at the peak, the value of tokens in it reached $477 million.
Previously, this address participated in transactions with GRIFT, CHILLGUY, and MOODENG, which gave grounds to assume it belongs to an insider from the Solana-based DEX liquidity aggregator Jupiter.
"The reason TRUMP caused FOMO in the market is that, on the one hand, the astronomical token capitalization of $82 billion provoked an exaggerated engagement effect. On the other hand, some whales, having made early purchases, publicly disclosed their orders, which fueled the hype," the experts concluded.
As a reminder, according to the dashboard on Dune, most TRUMP holders ended up break-even or at a loss of up to $1000.
