Early this morning, MagicEden announced a collaboration with $Trump to launch Trump Wallet. Upon the news, MagicEden's token $ME market value rose nearly 30% from $850 million to $1.1 billion within two hours. However, Trump's sons EricTrump and DonaldJTrumpJr, along with Barron Trump, who had never posted on X before, all denied any connection to the announcement.
Eric even posted twice, warning MagicEden, "We will be very cautious about using our name in unapproved projects unknown to our organization." With the Trump sons' "fact-checking," $ME's market value dropped to $960 million and is currently hovering around $1 billion.
Announced and Denied in Seconds: What's the Deal with the "Trump Wallet"?
The news was first published on X at 12:10 AM (UTC+8) by software engineer and crypto researcher Molly White, who discovered domain and website information related to TrumpWallet.com. She noted that the website was already online before the official announcement, offering a waitlist for the wallet and promoting $TRUMP token rewards. Bitcoin Magazine later reported on the event.
An hour later, at 1:35 AM, MagicEden officially announced a collaboration with $TRUMP to build the wallet for @TrumpWalletApp. After their announcement, many team members shared the news. MagicEden co-founder and CEO Jack tweeted, "Sign up for our waitlist now! There will be $1 million in $TRUMP rewards when the app launches. Users who refer at least one person will have a chance to win a $100,000 grand prize." With the "invitation campaign" launched, TrumpWalletApp invitation codes quickly spread through the community.
At 2:21 AM, Eric Trump, son of former US President Trump, tweeted, "I run the Trump Organization, but I know nothing about this project," tagging WLFI, his AmericanBTC, and the "$Trump" protagonist. Subsequently, family members including DonaldJTrumpJr and Barron Trump, along with WLFI team members, shared and opposed the action.
Despite the "WLFI members" opposition, both the TrumpMeme official account and MagicEden team members confirmed the collaboration, leaving the situation confusing. The original Trump Wallet X account has been banned by Twitter, and it was previously a gold-verified MagicEden account. Reviewing the website's privacy policy and terms and conditions, the "promotional activities" are handled by Slingshot Finance, which was acquired by MagicEden two months ago.
Two Factions in the Trump Crypto Group
This is not the first time the Trump team has shown instability. During his previous presidential term, internal team members' different factions and changes were significant, with personnel resignations being commonplace. Now, as cryptocurrency enters the focus of Trump's governance, teams related to interests have become more fragmented, with everyone wanting a piece of the pie.
MEME Token Issuer, Trump's Long-Term Business Partner
Interestingly, from MagicEden CEO Jack's Twitter, he recently attended a $Trump dinner with the founder of the previously mentioned acquired Slingshot, and this tweet was reshared by the official $Trump MEME account. On June 3rd, the TRUMP MEME official account stated that they airdropped three different Solana NFTs to wallets of users who participated in the "Dinner with Trump" event, which now seems like a prelude to the "Trump Wallet App".
The organizer of the $Trump dinner in Washington in May 2025 is Bill Zanker, a long-time friend of President Trump. Bill Zanker is the "authorized person" of Fight Fight Fight LLC, the company behind the $TRUMP token. The company, along with CIC Digital LLC, owns 80% of the $TRUMP MEME token shares, valued at billions of dollars.
CIC Digital LLC was established in 2021 by John Marion, one of Trump's lawyers, and former advisor Nick Luna. As a subsidiary of the Trump Organization, it collaborates with Fight Fight Fight LLC to operate the $TRUMP token website and generate transaction revenue.
CIC Digital LLC is responsible for authorizing Trump's name and likeness for NFT projects like Trump Digital Trading Cards. Bill Zanker is considered a key driver of Trump's NFT projects. Reports suggest that in 2022, Zanker proposed an NFT series to Trump and met with him at his Mar-a-Lago club to discuss the project's feasibility. CIC Digital LLC licensed Trump's brand to NFT INT LLC (a Delaware-registered company), with Zanker playing an organizational and promotional role, though he does not directly own NFT INT LLC.
This is not their first collaboration. As a prominent NFT platform, Magic Eden had previously collaborated with the Trump Digital Trading Cards project. In March 2024, the Trump card NFT project announced its migration to Magic Eden, stating that Magic Eden had "established a dedicated team to assist users in managing Trump digital card collections".
Their relationship dates back to around 2000. Bill Zanker founded The Learning Annex education company, hoping to make it the "McDonald's of education". Founded in 1980 in a New York studio apartment with $5,000, the company grew rapidly, with revenues once exceeding $100 million. Celebrity speakers in their courses included motivational speaker Tony Robbins, former boxer George Foreman, and Trump. In a 2002 Learning Annex speech titled "Think Big: Nothing is Impossible!", Zanker claimed he paid Trump $1.5 million per appearance, though Trump later admitted it was only $400,000.
In 2007, the two co-authored "Think Big and Kick ASS in Business and Life". Additionally, they co-founded the ill-fated crowdfunding website FundAnything in 2013, which Zanker established with his own $1 million. A year later, Trump distanced himself from the project, only posting a few dozen tweets and stating that "raising these funds took too much of my time and energy", after which the project "fizzled out". Until 2022, when Bill Zanker proposed the "trump Non-Fungible Token" business concept, they have been collaborating in the crypto field since then. The official website's statement declares "TRUMP" as a registered trademark of DTTM Operations LLC. The product is not distributed or sold by Donald J. Trump, the Trump Organization, or any of their respective affiliates or executives. DTTM Operations LLC is a limited liability company registered in New York, established in 2015, active in real estate, hotels, entertainment, clothing, political services, and holding numerous Trump brand-related trademarks, with at least 137 recorded. DTTM Operations LLC also holds the "THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION" trademark. The $Trump registered copyright is not provided with "IP support" by Eric Trump's THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION, but obtained IP ownership from DTTM Operations LLC. Although Trump claimed to hand over daily operations to his children (such as Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump) during his presidency, DTTM Operations LLC is still widely viewed as an entity protecting and managing Trump-related assets. Besides Bill Zanker, the crypto community believes the $Trump project also involves David Sacks, chairman of the crypto committee, known as a PayPal co-founder and for creating Yammer, which he sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion. In the crypto world, David Sacks is most importantly an investor in crypto venture firm Multicoin and a Solana maximalist. "One of the stupidest attacks against me this year is claiming I sold SOL tokens to retail investors. If that were true, they should have made a fortune by now. Congratulations to everyone holding SOL" - Sacks never sold SOL even during the FTX collapse. Because $Trump is deployed on the Solana chain, and Sacks remained silent about these "zero-sum meme coins" when Trump launched $TRUMP, many believe the crypto committee chairman and PayPal Mafia member likely participated. Within a few days of $Trump, a $MELANIA token named after Trump's wife was also issued. Messari founder Ryan Selkis tweeted Trump, suggesting he fire those recommending the $MELANIA project. "The project team lacks professional capabilities, could cause significant economic losses and reputation damage, and project decisions do not sufficiently consider Trump's interests," Selkis pointed out the issues with $MELANIA. Compared to $TRUMP, $MELANIA's issuance appears more hasty, with incomplete frontend code, uncompressed images, a website built just a day before project launch, and imprecise legal text. Many netizens speculate that $TRUMP and $MELANIA were handled differently, possibly by different teams. More than one community member reported, "If my source is correct, $TRUMP was driven by crypto czar David Sacks, while $MELANIA was done by the Worldliberty team. But we can be sure these two coins were not created by the same team." The story continues with details about WLFI, Trump family crypto ventures, and their expanding crypto ecosystem in 2025.
