Trump's Media Company Launches New Business to Buy Billions in Niche Crypto Coin — WSJ
By Vicky Ge HuangPresident Trump's media business is launching a new company to buy and hold CRO, a niche token affiliated with Crypto.com, his family's latest expansion into the market for digital assets.The detailsTrump Media & Technology Group said Tuesday it is partnering with Crypto.com and Yorkville Acquisition, a special-purpose acquisition company, to create a new firm called Trump Media Group CRO Strategy.The entity will raise about $6.4 billion to buy CRO tokens, Trump Media said. Crypto.com, a Singapore-based exchange for digital assets, will seed it with $1 billion in CRO tokens. An affiliate of Yorkville Advisors, a New Jersey financial firm, will provide the new company with a $5 billion line of credit.Crypto.com is best known in the U.S. for its sports-marketing blitz, including a $700 million, 20-year naming-rights agreement to Los Angeles's Staples Center and a massive ad campaign featuring actor Matt Damon. Yorkville Advisors was retained earlier this year by Trump Media to help manage its exchange-traded funds.The new company will be majority-owned by the three founding partners: Yorkville, Trump Media, and Crypto.com.Separately, Trump Media said it agreed to integrate CRO into its various digital platforms, including Truth Social. In this partnership with Crypto.com, Trump Media will buy about $105 million in CRO tokens, with Crypto.com purchasing $50 million in Trump Media stock.Shares of Trump Media rose more than 6% Tuesday afternoon. CRO jumped over 20%.The contextTrump Media, the operator of Truth Social, has made a series of significant moves into the crypto market since Trump publicly embraced the industry. The company recently raised more than $2 billion to acquire bitcoin, a strategy that echoes the approach taken by corporate bitcoin-holder MicroStrategy.Trump Media has also filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch several crypto ETFs and previously signed a nonbinding agreement with Crypto.com to develop these products.The big pictureFrom memecoin to bitcoin mining, the Trump family reached into nearly every corner of the crypto market in less than a year. President Trump's involvement in his family's ever-expanding crypto empire has generated conflicts-of-interest concerns, with critics lambasting it as an unprecedented blurring of the lines between his business interests and official duties.Write to Vicky Ge Huang at [email protected]