Global Financial Media

GFM's Web4 × RWA Special Series: Deconstructing the Institutions - Part 4 of the Trump Family Currency Series

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(Image caption) The origins of the red hat: Initially just a political merchandise, a red hat later became a visible symbol of identity, emotion, and community mobilization. It allowed supporters to wear their stance on their heads, rather than simply voting.

Preface: Let's start with a small incident.

In 2015, Jared Kushner first walked into his office in Trump Tower and saw a hat on the desk of marketing director Amanda Miller.

Red background with white lettering: four capital English words: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

Miller told him that Trump personally asked her to order 1,000 hats, but she thought he wouldn't care, so she only ordered 100. When the hats were unveiled, the situation exceeded everyone's expectations. Demand was so high that Kushner and Brad Parscale eventually spent $10,000 on Facebook advertising, pushing daily sales from $8,000 to $80,000. The revenue from the hats covered the campaign's daily expenses.

This incident was later included in Kushner's memoir.

When I first read this detail, I felt there was a clear logical connection between it and $TRUMP meme coins ten years later.

The profit margin on hats is extremely high. Each hat costs approximately two to three dollars to manufacture and sells for twenty-five dollars. FEC campaign finance filings show that in the fourth quarter of 2015, Trump's campaign spent approximately $940,000 on hats and related merchandise, with hats alone accounting for nearly $470,000—one of the largest single campaign expenditures at the time. By the time of the 2016 election, Trump-affiliated suppliers had received over $21 million in orders from Trump-related entities between 2015 and 2017.

This is no small business.

But at that time, its institutional boundaries were still clear: a hat was a hat, sold to supporters to express a position and support the election.

Ten years later, this line of reasoning led to a memecoin that once had a market capitalization of over $15 billion, generated over $320 million in transaction fees for its issuer, and caused losses for 760,000 retail wallets.

The shift from hats to tokens wasn't a sudden, overnight change. It was a gradual process, traceable and systematically deconstructable.

That is the task of this article.

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The power of a hat lies not in the hat itself.

The MAGA hat is a rare item in political history.

It's so simple, almost unlike a political piece. No complicated design, no elaborate printing, no special functional features. Just an ordinary baseball cap, red body, white lettering.

But it accomplished something extremely difficult:

It compresses a complex political sentiment into a wearable symbol.

The words "Make America Great Again" can be interpreted very differently by people from different perspectives. Some read hope, some read discontent, some read anger, and some read identity. But whatever you read, this hat has successfully allowed the wearer to wear that emotion on their head, to the streets, to rallies, and to every social media photo.

The ultimate goal of political commodities is to make people willingly become mobile billboards.

The MAGA hat did just that. It made complex politics visible, visually uniting scattered supporters into a single tribe. From 2016 to 2020, and into 2024, more than 2 million MAGA hats have been distributed through official Trump campaign channels.

This persistence is key to understanding everything that followed.

Political commodities typically serve an election. Once the election is over, the commodity is no longer in use.

But the MAGA hat didn't disappear. It survived an election defeat, the Capitol Hill incident, and all the political opponents who tried to make it disappear, becoming a long-term symbol of political identity.

Once a product survives the initial design and service cycle, it ceases to be merely a product. It becomes a symbol. And once a symbol gains sustained popularity, it can be collected, priced, and financialized.

This is the prerequisite for NFTs and Tokens to rise to prominence. Without the decade-long brand popularity accumulated by Hat Era, on-chain assets would not have had enough room for imagination.

(Image caption) The business model behind political merchandise: The value of the MAGA hat lies not in the fabric, but in the symbolism. Low cost, high profit margin, and strong sense of identity have transformed it from an ordinary souvenir into a significant cash flow source for Trump's political brand.

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Trump has always been a brand businessman.

Another thread in this story is Trump's own business acumen.

Before entering politics, he was not an ordinary businessman. The name "Trump" was already etched on buildings, golf courses, hotels, reality TV shows, licensed wines, and steaks. He understood how to treat his personal brand as an asset that could be repeatedly licensed, charged for, and monetized.

Politics simply brought the brand into a more intense public sphere.

So when Trump decided to launch NFTs in 2022, it wasn't a politician trying to make money for the first time, but rather a natural extension of a brand merchant transplanting his licensing business onto the blockchain.

It's worth noting that Trump-related NFTs were never issued directly by Trump's own company from the outset. Instead, they were operated through NFT International LLC, a company authorized to use Trump's name, image, and likeness. Licensing fees and royalties went to the Trump-related entity, while the risks and enforcement remained external.

This structure later appeared again in the $TRUMP meme coin: brand first, entity second, profits go to the center, and risks flow to the market.

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NFTs : The First Step in Putting Political Souvenirs on the Blockchain

On December 15, 2022, Trump released his first batch of "Digital Transaction Cards" NFTs, priced at $99 each, with a total of 45,000 cards available. They sold out in less than 12 hours, generating approximately $4.45 million in initial sales.

Many people took it as a joke at the time.

Trump dressed as a superhero. Trump dressed in a spacesuit. Trump dressed as a cowboy. Trump with laser beams shooting from his eyes.

It is indeed somewhat absurd. But if you look beyond the images and examine the design logic, you'll discover the institutional significance of this step:

The hat is a physical item. Once sold, the transaction is complete.

NFTs are on-chain credentials. They are inherently transferable, trackable, and tradable on secondary markets, and can also be attached with subsequent rights.

Those NFTs didn't just sell images; they also bundled in dinner access, meet-and-greet opportunities, Zoom calls, golf course experiences, and autographed souvenirs. Those who purchased 45 or more NFTs were entered into a lottery for a spot at Trump's dinner. Secondary market data shows that some early buyers saw returns exceeding 1,000%.

When the fourth series, "America First Edition," is launched in 2024, the design will be even more straightforward: those who purchase 15 or more cards will receive a physical card containing fabric from the suit Trump wore during the debate with Biden; those who purchase 75 cards will receive a chance to attend a dinner at Trump's golf club.

According to on-chain data, the total revenue from the issuance of Trump's four NFT series has exceeded $22 million; if secondary market royalties are included, the revenue of Trump-related entities from NFT projects is estimated to be even higher. Trump himself disclosed in his 2022 financial filing that NFT-related revenue that year was between $100,001 and $1 million.

At this point, political commodities have undergone a quiet transformation:

It is no longer just about "buying to show support," but rather "buying an on-chain credential that may grant access to scarce identity, transferability, and potential political access."

From hats to NFTs, political commodities have completed their first financialization upgrade.

(Image caption) Political memorabilia goes on the blockchain for the first time: NFTs combine political images, scarcity, lottery rights and secondary market trading, giving traditional political merchandise financial attributes.

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$TRUMP Memecoin: Political Brand Officially Enters 24- Hour Trading Market

NFTs still retain the guise of collectibles. People can understand them as digital souvenirs, and within that framework, they're not so far removed from the concept of a hat.

Meme coins are different.

Meme coins are a product of the financial market. They lack the ritualistic feel of collectibles and the material satisfaction of "owning something special." Instead, they are driven by price, volatility, trading volume, and 24/7 market sentiment.

On January 17, 2025, two days before the inauguration ceremony, $TRUMP was launched.

Its early peak market capitalization exceeded $15 billion.

This figure cannot be explained by any political merchandise.

Since its launch, Trump has generated over $320 million in transaction fee revenue, which has flowed to entities associated with the project.

During the same period, another Trump family-owned crypto project, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), raised approximately $550 million through two rounds of token sales, with 75% of the net proceeds going to Trump-related entities. Including transaction fee revenue from $TRUMP, the total revenue of Trump-related crypto projects is estimated at approximately $800 million in the first half of 2025, far exceeding the revenue from his golf, real estate, and brand licensing businesses during the same period.

This is the ultimate form of the financialization of political commodities:

The hat is sold once, and the money is collected once.

An NFT is sold once at its initial launch, and royalties are collected continuously.

As long as there are people trading tokens in the market, fees will continue to flow in.

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Three types of buyers are sitting in the same market.

Buyers of traditional political commodities are simple. He supports Trump, so he buys. The purchase is complete. He doesn't expect the hat to appreciate in value tomorrow, nor does he worry about the hat's "liquidity."

In the market for $Trump, there are at least three completely different types of people.

The first type consists of genuine political supporters. They buy $Trump, much like buying hats in the past, to express their stance and identity. For them, the token is more like a digital badge. The problem is, they're entering a financial market, and the market won't give them preferential treatment based on their loyalty.

The second type is the pure speculator. They don't care about Trump; they only care about the volatility created by the market's activity. They look for arbitrage opportunities in other people's emotions, and they usually react faster and exit the market before retail investors.

The third type is the ordinary person in between. They support Trump and vaguely feel that this might be profitable, but they can't quite articulate what they're doing. According to a Washington Post investigation, among approximately 67,000 individual buyers who purchased $TRUMP through the official website using debit cards, the typical buyer invested about $100 and ultimately suffered an unrealized loss of about $62.

All three types of people use the same buy button.

But the situations they entered were completely different.

Speculators know they are speculating.

Supporters may not be aware of the risks they are taking.

The most dangerous type of person is the third type—those who enter the market under the guise of support but bear the consequences with the capital of retail investors.

(Image caption) $TRUMP enters the heart of the market: Memecoin brings political branding into the 24- hour trading market. It is no longer just a memento for supporters, but a financial container driven by price, volatility, trading volume, and liquidity.

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Political proximity has been quietly put into the market.

What I feel most needs to be seriously documented in this series is not the price or the transaction fees, but the accessibility.

A hat lets you know where you are. It doesn't guarantee you can get close to anyone because of it.

The first NFT series gave select buyers the opportunity to participate in a raffle at the dinner party.

The fourth NFT series grants direct entry to the dinner party to those who purchase 75 cards.

The $TRUMP meme coin invited the first 220 holders to a dinner on May 22, with the first 25 receiving VIP treatment. The original page also mentioned a "special White House tour".

This line has moved forward a little bit with each step.

Within the basic framework of democratic politics, opportunities to access those in power should be roughly equal for all citizens, or at least not directly linked to wealth. Campaign donations are capped, there are disclosure obligations, and foreign funding is prohibited. These rules are not perfect, but they at least acknowledge one principle: political access should not be put on a price tag.

The token opened a crack in this boundary.

It didn't say "how much money you can spend to meet the president." But it did say "the 220 people with the highest cash holdings were invited." The distance between these two things is shorter than it seems.

At the dinner on May 22, the top cryptocurrency holder was Justin Sun, a Chinese crypto tycoon facing fraud charges from the SEC, with holdings worth approximately $18.5 million. He sat in the most prominent position and received a limited-edition watch personally presented by the president. The Trump administration suspended legal proceedings against him after he invested $75 million in World Liberty Financial, owned by the Trump family.

This issue can be considered a systemic problem without any political label.

It simply needs to be described honestly: a foreign citizen facing federal charges, by holding a token of the US president's personal brand, attends a private dinner that only the highest token holder can enter and receives a personal greeting from that president.

This is not something that could have happened during the era of hats.

(Image caption) Approaching the ticketing of power: On May 22 , 2025 , top holders of the $TRUMP token ranking were invited to a dinner. Justin Sun, who topped the list, received a limited-edition watch personally presented by Trump, sparking huge controversy.

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WLFI : This story isn't over yet.

Following the creation of $TRUMP memecoin, the Trump family's crypto empire continues to expand.

World Liberty Financial completed two token sales in late 2024 and early 2025, raising a total of approximately $550 million. According to its white paper, 75% of the net proceeds from the sales went to entities associated with the Trump family. In September 2025, WLFI tokens officially opened for trading, with trading volume exceeding $1 billion on the first day, and the book value of the tokens held by the Trump family increased by approximately $5 billion in one day.

According to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal, by the end of 2025, the Trump family had pocketed at least $1.2 billion in cash from crypto projects over approximately 16 months, with an additional $2.25 billion in unrealized gains.

This number is on a scale that no hat or NFT can match.

It also makes the path from the hat to the token clearer and more worthy of being recorded.

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Systemic problems are more persistent than price issues.

The financialization of Trump's political products will not stop when Trump's personal political career ends.

What it left behind was a proven, functional template:

A strong brand combined with a strong community can generate the basic traffic for the meme market.

The token structure allows issuers to continuously profit from transaction fees without directly "selling" tokens.

NFT ticketing mechanisms can quantify and market political accessibility.

In an environment where the regulatory framework is still unclear, the above combination can simultaneously circumvent the definition of securities, political donation regulations, and bans on foreign funds.

This template is not exclusive to Trump.

Anyone with sufficient brand popularity, strong identity politics, and an active community can try to replicate this. The next one could be another politician, a transnational community leader, an AI-generated symbol, or something we can't even name yet.

Regulation lagging behind innovation is not news.

But when political identity, public power, and financial instruments begin to mix in the same container, the cost of lag is not just market losses, but the erosion of institutional trust.

GFM is not here to draw moral conclusions.

We simply want to clearly document this path from hat to token, step by step, so that when readers see a similar design next time, they can ask those most basic questions sooner:

Who designed this container?

Who controls the supply?

Who benefits?

Who will ultimately bear the losses?

(Image caption) The expansion of the crypto finance landscape: From $TRUMP to WLFI , the Trump family's crypto projects are no longer just a meme coin story, but a financial landscape composed of political branding, token sales, trading revenue, and DeFi narrative.

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GFM Core Observations

The evolution of Trump's political commodities follows a clear path of financialization:

Hats facilitate the visualization of identity, but are subject to the one-time transaction logic of physical goods;

NFTs have enabled the on-chain credentialization of identity, introducing scarcity and a secondary market;

$TRUMP meme coins have enabled the liquidity trading of identity, allowing emotions, loyalty, and speculation to mix indiscriminately in the same market;

WLFI goes a step further, bringing political brands into the decentralized finance (DeFi) revenue structure, allowing presidential families to earn billions of dollars in crypto revenue.

The institutional logic of the entire path is consistent: brand comes first, structure comes second, profits go to the center, and risks flow to the market.

It reminds us that in an era where political brands can be tokenized, the firewall between public power, private benefits, and market sentiment needs to be seriously rebuilt, rather than simply being glossed over with a few lines of disclaimer in legal provisions.

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Disclaimer

This article is part of GFM's "Web4 × RWA" special series on institutional analysis. All content is compiled from publicly available information, official financial reports, FEC election documents, mainstream media reports, and publicly available blockchain data, including but not limited to public reports from Time, Fortune, QZ, Chainalysis, CoinDesk, CNBC, ABC News, Reuters, and related organizations.

This article does not constitute investment advice, legal advice, or any form of buy or sell recommendation. Cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and memes are highly volatile, and market participants may lose all their principal in a very short time. Readers should conduct thorough research and consult with qualified financial, legal, and tax advisors before making any investment, transaction, or legal decisions.

The analysis of relevant figures, projects, and market phenomena in this article aims to explore the institutional path of the financialization of political commodities. It does not represent GFM's support, opposition, or endorsement of any political stance, political party, individual, or investment target.

The Financialization Journey of a Red Hat