Trump's cryptocurrency on a mobile phone screen
Afrasianet - A majority of Americans believe President Donald Trump and his family have benefited illegally from cryptocurrencies since he returned to power, and that his policy decisions are influenced by the private business activities he runs , a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.
A four-day poll found that half of Trump's own Republican supporters believe the president allows considerations of his business interests to influence his decisions, a striking result for Trump, who has vowed to purge the United States of corruption.
Born into a family that works in real estate in New York, Trump built a name for himself that became a global brand before running for president.
He made more than $1.4 billion last year from his family's crypto ventures, including World Liberty Financial and Trump's digital currency, digital assets he has publicly defended.
In March 2025, two months after the start of his second term, the president drew attention on social media to his trademark digital currency, calling it "the greatest of all."
Inappropriate deals
About 63 percent of respondents said it was inappropriate for Trump and his family to benefit in this way, 32 percent thought it was appropriate, and the rest did not answer the question.
Nearly 3 in 10 Republicans called the deals inappropriate.
Democrats have repeatedly highlighted alleged corruption in the administration ahead of November's midterm congressional elections, which will determine control of Congress for the next two years.
The president's administration has vowed to investigate alleged corruption in Democratic-run states.
Trump says he has not directly interfered in his family's business since returning to office, and that his investments are independently managed.
He pursued pro-crypto policies in his second term, after seeking to promote them during his election campaign.
The White House has denied any accusations of wrongdoing and said Trump's investments are managed by independent financial institutions.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement: "There is no conflict of interest. The president only acts in the best interests of the American people."
Unprecedented interference
But experts in presidential ethics have called the current overlap between business and politics in the White House unprecedented.
Richard Painter, a senior ethics lawyer for former Republican President George W. Bush, said: "We've never seen anything like this before, even the first Trump administration didn't have as complex business interests as the second Trump administration."
About 69 percent of Americans said they believe Trump's own interests influence his presidential decisions, including two-thirds of independents and 9 in 10 Democrats.
Americans are divided on whether corruption is worse under the Trump administration than it has been under previous presidents, with Democrats generally believing corruption has worsened.
Republicans are almost evenly divided, with 56 percent saying the level of corruption has decreased even slightly, while the rest say it has remained the same or worse.
The Reuters/Ipsos online poll surveyed 1,166 U.S. adults nationwide from Aug. 14 to 17.
The margin of error in the results was 3 percentage points for all Americans and 5 points for Democrats, Republicans and independents.
Trump Media and Technology Group had earlier announced the launch of a paid service called Truth API, which allows financial institutions and trading firms to have instant access to the president's and other personalities' posts via a software interface, for a fee of between $60,000 and $100,000 per month.
This sparked a wide controversy that went beyond the impact of his statements on moving the prices of oil, stocks and currencies, to the question of who gets to these publications first, and whether the time advantage in obtaining information can be turned into a financial asset to be bought and sold.
From Truth to Wall Street. How do Trump's posts move the markets?
The launch of the Trump Media and Technology Group, a paid service that allows financial institutions to quickly access US President Donald Trump's publications, has sparked a new controversy, beyond the impact of his statements on moving the prices of oil, stocks, and currencies, to the question of who gets to those publications first, and whether the time advantage in obtaining information can be turned into a financial asset to be bought and sold.
The controversy followed the Trump Media and Technology Group's announcement of the launch of a paid service called Truth API, which allows financial institutions and trading firms to have instant access to the president's and other personalities' posts via a software interface, for a fee of between $60,000 and $100,000 per month.
Although the company maintains that the service does not provide information that is not publicly available, critics argue that the real value lies in giving institutional investors a time advantage that could translate into significant profits in markets that increasingly rely on algorithmic trading capable of executing buy and sell orders in milliseconds.
The issue is becoming more sensitive with a long record of Trump's statements in recent months that have repriced billions of dollars in assets, whether through publications related to the war with Iran, tariffs, listed companies, or the energy and defense sectors, raising questions about the boundaries between selling a data service and selling a financial advantage.
Speed economy
The economic value of the new service is not to provide exclusive information, but to reduce the time between publication of the publication and its access to institutional trading systems.
As markets increasingly rely on artificial intelligence and fast trading algorithms, speed itself has become an economic resource, with a time difference of as little as seconds or milliseconds can give an investor the opportunity to execute trades before the market requotes.
Polly Allen, a business and technology correspondent for National Radio, believes that early access to Trump's publications could easily translate into tens of millions of dollars for hedge funds and institutional investors.
This importance stems from the fact that Trump regularly uses Truth Social to announce developments related to war, economic policy, and tariffs, and sometimes to refer to specific companies, making his posts part of the information environment on which markets depend.
Oil First
The oil market has been the most sensitive to Trump's publications in recent months, as his statements regarding the war with Iran and the Strait of Hormuz have caused wide price movements.
In March, oil prices fell more than 13% in a single session after he announced the postponement of strikes on Iran's electricity and energy facilities, easing market fears of supply disruptions.
The scene was repeated in April when oil fell below $100 a barrel after announcing the approval of a two-week ceasefire with Iran, coinciding with expectations of the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the resumption of oil tanker traffic.
Andrew Lebo, founder of Lebo Oil Associates, said markets had quickly repriced the risks as backlogs of supplies were expected to return to global markets.
These moves continued through May and June, as prices fell as the ceasefire continued, and then as Trump talked about progress in negotiations with Iran, before falling again after announcing the cancellation of a strike targeting Iran.
These developments illustrate how a few words from the president have been able to modify investors' expectations on global supply and geopolitical risks in a matter of minutes.
Impact of Markets
Trump's publications have not only impacted energy markets, but have extended to sectors and companies listed on Wall Street.
Envaz Energy fell 4.2% after a post attacking wind and solar projects, and shares of defense companies including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman fell after it criticized the military-industrial companies' buyback and dividend policies.
On the other hand, his comments on the possibility of ending the war with Iran pushed US stock indices to their best daily performance since the outbreak of the war, with the S&P 500 up 1.1%, while the Dow Jones and Nasdaq climbed 1.4%.
Palantir stock also briefly rose after Trump praised the company via Truth Social and directly mentioned its stock symbol, while Intel stock benefited from similar posts.
The impact also extended to currencies, with the Canadian dollar coming under pressure after its threats to impose higher tariffs on Canada, while shares of nuclear energy companies fell following its remarks on the nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia.
These examples reflect the breadth of the influence of presidential publications, no longer limited to politics or macroeconomics, but a direct factor in the repricing of entire firms and sectors.
Conflicts of interest
The launch of the service has also re-highlighted the Trump family's growing business interests, particularly in the crypto sector.
An analysis published by Reuters indicated a possible link between some of Trump's posts on Truth Social and the movements of digital assets associated with him, after he used his accounts to promote coins bearing his name, one of which rose to a record high before later losing about 80% of its value.
That gives an additional dimension to the debate, as it concerns not only the influence of the President of the United States in the markets, but also the possibility that his publications may influence assets that are directly or indirectly related to his business interests.
Questions about conflicts of interest are growing after its financial disclosure showed it generated about $1.4 billion in digital asset-related activities in 2025, according to an analysis published by The Guardian, while CIC Digital LLC generated more than $600 million from sales of digital assets tied to its name, in addition to more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial.
Organizational controversy
The new service has prompted a number of U.S. senators to ask regulators to examine their compliance with securities laws.
Senator Richard Blumenthal said the president's publications on the war and government policies directly affect markets, criticizing the sale of preferential access to them.
Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff also called on the SEC and federal regulators to examine the service, saying it raises concerns about the use of the presidential office for financial gain.
Erin Aldridge, president of AbleAlpha Trading, believes that the problem is not the content of the publications, but the faster access to them for a specific group of clients, while Renee Jones, a professor at Boston College and a former SEC official, argues that the nature of the service raises questions about trading rules based on insider information.
Trump Media and Technology Group rejects these criticisms, with spokeswoman Shannon Devine noting that the service does not provide confidential or publicly available information, but rather provides customers with the fastest technical way to import data already published on Truth Social.
Financial Advantage
Truth API reflects a broader shift in the nature of information within financial markets, where competition is no longer just about owning data, but also about how quickly it can be accessed.
For years, financial institutions have been paying large sums of money to get news, economic data, and market prices in real time, but the peculiarity of the current situation is that some of the most sensitive information comes from the president of the United States himself, while the platform through which it is published is owned by a business group associated with him.
The debate has moved beyond the question of whether the information is public or not, to another question of whether a time advantage can be sold to access a president's statements capable of influencing war, trade, tariffs, regulation, and markets.
This advantage may seem time-limited, but experience over the past months has shown that a single publication can reprice oil, stocks, or currencies in minutes, making the seconds especially economically valuable for institutions that rely on automated trading.
Revenue Betting
The launch of Truth API comes at a time when the Trump Media and Technology Group is facing a remarkable financial paradox as it tries to turn the speed of access to the president's publications into a new source of revenue, while its business is recording losses that far exceed its revenues.
The Group's most recent disclosures to the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed a net loss of $238 million during the second quarter of 2026, compared to revenues of only $1.7 million, despite an 89% increase compared to the same period last year.
The bulk of the losses came from the Group's investments, recording approximately $190.4 million in unrealized losses related to digital assets, encumbered digital assets and securities, in addition to $11.7 million in accrued interest and $8.1 million in equity-based compensation.
The revenue composition reveals the group's limited operating activity to date, with most of the second-quarter income coming from the media sector, including about $1.43 million from advertising and just $179.5 thousand from subscriptions.
Trump Media & Technology Group's losses during the first half of 2026 rose to $644 million, against revenues of about $2.5 million, while the company's shares, listed on NASDAQ under the symbol "DGT", fell by about 8% in the results announcement session.
The group's portfolio includes Truth Social, Truth Plus, and Truth.Fi, and expanded over the past year into cryptocurrencies, before entering the financial institutions data market via Truth API in early August.
Despite the service's novelty, the group's interim chief executive, Kevin McGovern, said 10 companies have already signed up for Truth API, each paying between $60,000 and $100,000 per month, meaning their monthly revenue could theoretically range from $600,000 to $1 million if all subscriptions are within the advertised range.
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Source: Agencies
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