On June 18, according to a report by Business Insider, American billionaire Mark Cuban said that the Trump phone may not make money from the hardware itself, but that its real profit point lies in cryptocurrency transaction fees.
Trump Mobile T1
The Trump family launched Trump's own brand smartphone T1 on Monday, priced at $499. Later, Cuban made a provocative point on X. He believes that the real purpose of the Trump family launching this gold phone is probably to make money through cryptocurrency.
"I think they may be playing a clever trick, which is to build a cryptocurrency wallet into the phone and make money using WLF, the cryptocurrency $Trump and their stablecoin." Cuban posted in response to Trump's new mobile phone T1. WLF refers to World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency platform associated with the Trump family.
Cuban
"Whatever transactions they create, those generate fee revenue for them, and they have multiple ways to sell merchandise and preload what they want," Cuban noted.
Earlier this year, Trump launched his own internet celebrity coin: $Trump, whose valuation peaked in mid-January at more than $70 billion. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said the coin, whose backers include the Trump family and a series of affiliated companies, has earned more than $350 million in transaction fees.
Trump Media & Technology Group also filed documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday seeking approval of a new Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF). The fund plans to invest 75% of its assets in Bitcoin and 25% in Ethereum, further deepening the Trump family's layout in the cryptocurrency field.
In addition, Cuban also wants to know who and where Trump’s T1 phone is manufactured. The Trump family said the phone will be made in the United States. However, the Wall Street Journal analyzed that T1 is likely to be produced in China in the early stages.