The GENIUS Act Just Gave Trump’s Family the Greatest Crypto Advantage on Earth, And Congress Wrote the Rules
Disclaimer: This opinion piece is based on publicly reported news events. It covers public figures and some pretty chaotic government decisions. It’s not legal advice. It’s not ethical guidance. And it’s definitely not a shortcut for doing your own research. So read it, question it, and most importantly, always think for yourself.
Last Friday, President Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law at a White House ceremony packed with crypto executives and political loyalists. The moment was framed as a turning point for digital finance in America. Trump called it “one hell of a piece of legislation,” and the crowd laughed when he joked it was named after him. The cameras rolled. Headlines followed. Washington congratulated itself for being forward-thinking.
What didn't get covered is what this new law truly unlocks. Beneath the public celebration is a sprawling and quietly evolving business infrastructure centered around Trump, his adult children, and a network of tightly controlled crypto operations. The GENIUS Act creates a formalized pathway for stablecoin providers to gain credibility and influence, with little to no regulations or provisions for detangling public interest from personal profit.
The Trump administration is participating in the regulation of crypto from the White House. Through World Liberty Financial, the Trump family controls a stablecoin called USD1. On the surface, USD1 is structured like a traditional stablecoin, pegged to the U.S. dollar, promoted as secure, and pitched as a vehicle for modern financial transactions. Behind the scenes, it serves as a financial pipeline that connects foreign capital, private crypto enterprises, and a sitting U.S. president’s family. I’ve written about a dozen articles here on Substack on this and related topics. Do your own deep dive using the search feature at the top right of this page or via my easy-to-use AI Agent which has all my articles loaded into it.
In May 2025, during the TOKEN2049 conference in Dubai, a UAE-government-backed firm, MGX, publicly announced a $2 billion investment in Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. The deal was notable for more than just its size. The capital was moved using USD1, the Trump family’s stablecoin. That’s right. A foreign government used a digital token designed, managed, and majority-owned by the Trump family to fund a massive international crypto deal.
This stablecoin, USD1, isn’t a fringe product. It’s managed by World Liberty Financial (WLF), a company created in late 2024 by Trump’s sons. Donald Trump himself is listed as “chief crypto advocate” for the company. Public reports indicate that the family owns 60% of WLF and is contractually entitled to 75% of all profits generated by USD1. This arrangement positions the Trump family to benefit substantially from any global movement of money using the coin.
The GENIUS Act now provides a layer of legitimacy that USD1 previously lacked. The law allows banks, credit unions, and other approved entities to issue and operate stablecoins under a federal framework. With that framework in place, USD1 is a private token that now operates in a market validated by Congress and designed by Trump’s administration. The timing and implications are impossible to ignore.
This stablecoin is separate from the infamous $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins, which exploded onto the crypto market in January 2025. Those tokens were volatile and deeply speculative, not pegged to the dollar, and designed to capitalize on the Trump brand rather than serve any real utility. In their first few days, $TRUMP surged to $75 before crashing back down to $20. Over 800,000 investors were drawn in. Many saw their investments vanish overnight. Reports show that 80% of the supply was held by Trump-controlled entities, yet over 764,000 wallets ended up with losses. Insiders, meanwhile, earned over $1.1 billion in realized gains.
The structure of these meme coins favored a very small circle of well-positioned individuals. Trading fees alone netted over $324 million. Most of this came from everyday buyers, retail investors, many of them Trump supporters, who believed they were participating in something patriotic and valuable. Instead, they ended up locked into high-risk tokens with no intrinsic value and no roadmap. For the insiders, it was a different story. Even as the coins crashed, the fee mechanisms kept paying out.
Now look at USD1. It doesn’t have the same public volatility. It doesn’t carry the same flashy branding. It moves more quietly. And it is built for scale. And all of this is what makes USD1 so damn scary.
The Trump family is not just launching a novelty coin and walking away. With USD1, they are embedded in the transactional fabric of global crypto. The coin was created with the infrastructure to support major financial deals, and it is already being used for exactly that purpose. The $2 billion transfer from MGX to Binance was both a high-profile moment and a signal. It told the world that USD1 has arrived on center stage and the Trump family is at the center of it.
The GENIUS Act gives this setup formal structure. The law requires that stablecoins be backed one-to-one with U.S. dollars or Treasury assets. That sounds reassuring. It is framed as consumer protection. In practice, it also makes coins like USD1 more appealing to institutional players. By aligning with federal rules, USD1 can now tap into new partnerships, new banks, and new investor classes. This means the Trump family’s business could scale rapidly under the appearance of federal compliance.
Meanwhile, there’s no firewall separating Trump’s regulatory influence from his business holdings. His administration helped shape this law. His political allies helped pass it. His family stands to benefit directly from the systems it now governs. These are the kinds of overlaps that traditionally raise red flags for ethics investigators. In this case, they’re being waved through without scrutiny.
While attention remains focused on the wild swings of the meme coins, USD1 is quietly setting up something much more enduring and far-reaching. It’s about establishing a permanent role in a digitized financial future. The Trump family is building architecture inside of the crypto space, architecture that generates profit from foreign governments, global exchanges, and now, potentially, everyday American consumers.
The risks are layered and real. Financially, the Trump family is now tied to a currency platform that can be used for cross-border transfers involving billions of dollars. If the value of USD1 ever breaks its peg or faces liquidity challenges, the damage would extend far beyond political theater. Americans could be left holding a digital asset they thought was safe. And if foreign governments are using this coin to engage with U.S. exchanges, it opens doors to influence, leverage, and economic entanglement that deserve scrutiny.
The legal and regulatory clarity offered by the GENIUS Act doesn’t resolve these issues. It amplifies them. It sets the rules for stablecoins in a way that doesn’t disentangle private interests from public authority. It does not include any prohibitions on sitting presidents or their families profiting from these financial products. There are no transparency mandates for ownership, no public disclosures about potential conflicts, no oversight on the private firms issuing government-recognized coins.
And now, with that lack of accountability built into law, one family stands to gain more than any other.
When all is said and done, this is about our current Republican majority Congress allowing a sitting president and administration to operate as a regulator and a participant in the very markets it is supposed to oversee. It’s about Congress handing over the keys to our financial future without installing any safeguards. It’s about voters not being told, or understanding, the scale of what just happened.
The GENIUS Act was presented as a leap forward in financial innovation. For millions of Americans, it may end up being something very different. A vehicle for private profit. A shield for influence. A roadmap for how political power can be used to construct personal empires, brick by digital brick.
So what can we do about it? Speak up. Share the facts. Ask the questions. Demand transparency. And most of all, remember this when it’s time to vote in the 2026 midterms.
Because laws like the GENIUS Act don’t get reversed easily. Once the foundation is laid, the structure tends to stick. And the people who benefit from it are counting on our silence.
Let’s not give it to them.
Mitch Jackson, Esq. | links
The Presidency Is Not a Crypto Startup
When a sitting president signs a law that helps his family’s crypto coin go global, that’s not leadership. That’s self-enrichment at scale, fueled by public office and sealed by congressional silence.
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