A record $239 million in donations from executives and corporate backers made President Donald Trump’s inauguration week the most extravagant in history, the Federal Election Commission said in a filing on Sunday. The crypto sector, one of Trump’s most outspoken backers, contributed a sizable amount. The 47th president received inauguration donations totaling $18 million from cryptocurrency companies and their executives. A lobby group for the American vaping industry, large tech giants like Google, and oil companies like Exxon Mobil are among the other major donors.
Leading the group with about $4.9 million was Ripple Labs, which has been involved in a protracted legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Out of all the donations, Ripple’s was the second-largest. With its $5 million donation, Pilgrim’s, one of the biggest poultry manufacturers in the world, made the largest contribution.
$2 million was donated by Robinhood, an online brokerage that makes a significant portion of its income from cryptocurrency trading. A number of well-known companies in the sector, like as exchanges Coinbase, Kraken, and Crypto.com, are also major donors. The venture capital giant Paradigm, whose assets under management surged to near-highs in 2024, and stablecoin issuer Circle, which just filed to go public, also contributed $1 million apiece.
The Sunday submission demonstrates the entire breadth of the cryptocurrency industry’s financial support for Trump, even though many corporations had previously made their contributions to his inauguration public.
The SEC spearheaded a massive crackdown on the cryptocurrency business under former President Joe Biden, claiming that most cryptocurrencies are securities, which are financial assets subject to stringent disclosure requirements like stocks and bonds. Enraged by lawsuit after lawsuit, cryptocurrency executives gathered a record-breaking war fund and spent over $130 million to influence congressional elections and elect pro-crypto candidates.
CEOs in the cryptocurrency industry also supported Trump, who referred to himself as a “president who is pro-crypto.” The cofounders of the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, each donated $1 million to Trump’s reelection campaign. Jesse Powell, the chairman and co-founder of Kraken, also contributed $1 million.
Trump brought in a crypto-friendly administration after regaining the White House. He directed the defanging of crypto litigation divisions at the Department of Justice, the SEC, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; he appointed an AI and crypto czar; and he approved the establishment of a strategic reserve for digital assets and Bitcoin.
Since then, the SEC has thrown out lawsuits brought against Coinbase, Crypto.com, Uniswap, Yuga Labs, Kraken, and Ripple, among other donors to Trump’s inauguration fund.
