A look at the major players in the crypto industry and their ties to Trump

WILL WEISSERT

Tue, Jun 24, 2025, 9:43 AM 5 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump took office in January pledging to “make America the crypto capital of the world." He has since harnessed wide swaths of the federal government to bolster the industry — all while raking in huge sums of money for his family's business.

By some estimates, crypto ventures now account for nearly 40% of the Trump Organization's $2.9 billion net worth. But the Republican president's championing of the industry has been just as big a boon for many of the industry's top names.

Many have seen their profits and political standing soar, while investigations of potential wrongdoing and other legal entanglements led by the administration of Trump's predecessor, Democratic President Joe Biden, have largely fallen away.

Here's a look at some of the crypto industry's top leaders and their ties to Trump:

Justin Sun

A Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur and founder of the cryptocurrency platform Tron, Sun is best known for buying a piece of conceptual art consisting of a banana duct-taped to a wall for $6.2 million and subsequently eating the banana.

Ties to Trump: Sun was the top investor in Trump’s meme coin, $Trump, and secured the top spot at the president's recent crypto dinner, which was held at Trump’s golf course just outside Washington. Sun posted a professionally produced video of himself receiving a $100,000 gold watch that Trump’s meme coin awarded to the top four investors. Sun also recently bragged about his close ties to the White House, posting in Chinese on X “It’s all true” over a series of posts listing his links to the president and his meme coin. Sun was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission under Biden for working to artificially inflate the price of crypto, an investigation that has been paused since Trump took office. Sun was an early and important investor in World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture Trump and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. launched in September. The president’s most recent financial disclosure report reveals he made more than $57 million last year from World Liberty Financial, which has launched USD1, a stablecoin pegged at a 1-to-1 ratio to the U.S. dollar.

Michael Saylor

The co-founder and chair of Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, Saylor is one of bitcoin’s most prominent and outspoken evangelists. He owns a yacht once featured on “Entourage,” and his is the most high-profile bitcoin treasury company, which is a type of firm primarily focused on buying and holding bitcoin as its business model. Strategy currently holds more than 2% of all outstanding bitcoins in circulation and is constantly buying more.