Latest news with #Trump-linked
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump-Linked Toymaker Goes Crypto--Turns $5M Into $127M Overnight
A forgotten toymaker just became one of the hottest crypto plays of the yearand it all happened in less than a month. SRM Entertainment (NASDAQ:SRM), best known for hawking koala backpacks and Smurf-branded tumblers, saw its stock spike over 500% this week after announcing it would pivot into crypto under a new name: Tron Inc. The move came with a surprise twistJustin Sun, the controversial crypto entrepreneur, joined as an adviser. Behind the scenes, a small investment bank called Dominari Holdingswhere Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump now serve as adviserswas orchestrating the deal. SRM shares jumped from under $2 to over $9 before settling above $7. The biggest winner? A fund tied to Dominari scooped up a stake for $5 million in May. By Tuesday, that bet was worth $127 million. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Signs with SRM. This windfall wasn't random. Dominari played both sides of the deal. It arranged the original SRM investment for American Ventures LLC Series III SRM, a fund run by Dominari executive Soo Yuwho also happens to be married to the firm's president. Dominari and Yu were paid in warrants as part of the May deal, which grew from $230,000 to $3.8 million. Then this week, Yu's fund received another 5.36 million warrants for stepping in as advisernow worth more than $38 million. SRM plans to keep making toys while quietly building a stash of digital tokens tied to Sun's crypto platform. Obviously he's quite an impact player in this space, SRM's CEO Richard Miller said. It's a bet on convergence: old-school toys + new-school tokens. Zoom out, and this fits a bigger pattern. Dominari pivoted into investment banking less than three years ago, abandoning its biotech roots. Since then, it's been laying crypto breadcrumbsbuilding ventures like World Liberty Financial and American Bitcoin, both with Trump-linked ownership. Justin Sun has been a recurring face in those plays, too, despite a paused SEC lawsuit hanging over him. There's no indication the Trump brothers were involved in the SRM trades. But when your firm's address is Trump Tower, your executive team includes family friends, and your fund's crypto play just minted $100M+ on paper investors tend to pay attention. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Billionaire Mark Cuban has a blunt response to Trump's $499 golden phone
Billionaire Mark Cuban has a blunt response to Trump's $499 golden phone originally appeared on TheStreet. Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is sharing what he thinks is the "smart game" being played by Trump-affiliated crypto ventures — and he's not holding back. In a post on X on June 17, Cuban suggested that the developers of Trump-connected digital assets may be considering building a crypto wallet right into phones. Cuban believes the wallet could work off of World Liberty Financial, $TRUMP tokens, and various other Trump-linked ventures such as stablecoins. He considers that the intention is to create a transactional ecosystem that could passively collect user fees while also functioning as an easy way to preload and sell products. "I think the smart game they are probably playing is to put a crypto wallet on the phone that leverages WLF, $Trump, and their stablecoins," said Cuban. "Whatever transactions they can create generate fees for them, and there are so many ways to sell things and pre-load whatever they want," he wrote. Cuban was replying to a tweet by an X user Gary Koepnick, who stated, "I will never understand how 25% of the population cannot see him for what he is." Cuban is commenting on the recent launch of a Trump Mobile, a new wireless cell phone service from Donald Trump. Customers can keep their current phones or switch to new ones. The service that captures attention is a forthcoming "T1 Phone" made in the USA, available in gold color, and set to ship in August, as announced. Cuban suggests that the T1 Phone may serve as a "crypto wallet" with $TRUMP, WLF, and stablecoins as possible tokens. This could lead to a profitable ecosystem through embedded transactions and pre-loaded services. The crypto market has not reacted well to the idea of a Trump Phone. As of June 17, the official Trump meme coin, associated with President Donald Trump, is trading at $9.61, down by nearly 5% at press time. Billionaire Mark Cuban has a blunt response to Trump's $499 golden phone first appeared on TheStreet on Jun 17, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jun 17, 2025, where it first appeared. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump-linked stablecoin lands on the project launched by his wealthiest VIP guest
Trump-linked stablecoin lands on the project launched by his wealthiest VIP guest originally appeared on TheStreet. Justin Sun, the Chinese-born billionaire founder of the TRON blockchain, revealed on X on 11 June that the first USD1 stablecoin has officially been minted on TRON. Sun called the development as: "a small step for USD1, a giant leap for stablecoins!" A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency that, unlike usually volatile cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, aims to maintain a stable value. Pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar, USD1 is a stablecoin launched by World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance (DeFi) project linked to the Trump family. While President Donald Trump himself acts as the chief crypto advocate at the project, his sons Donald Jr., Eric, and Barron act as its ambassadors. The family holds a 60% stake in the project. Notably, TRON founder Justin Sun was the wealthiest guest at the private dinner gala hosted by Trump for the top 220 holders of the TRUMP meme coin on May 22. Sun bought TRUMP coins worth $19 million to make it to the VIP event. As previously reported, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had sued Sun in March 2023 for allegedly selling unregistered securities. After Trump won the presidential election in November 2024, Sun invested $30 million into the World Liberty Financial. Thereafter, the SEC, Tron, and Sun jointly urged the court in February 2025 to stop the proceedings. As per DeFiLlama, the stablecoin market is worth $251 billion, and USD1 accounts for a mere 0.0086% share. Besides USD1 and the eponymous meme coins, the Trump family is also engaged with other crypto ventures, such as Bitcoin mining and crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Trump-linked stablecoin lands on the project launched by his wealthiest VIP guest first appeared on TheStreet on Jun 12, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jun 12, 2025, where it first appeared. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Reuters
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Pro-Israel rabbi and Trump-linked pastor visit Syria, say peace is possible
BEIRUT, June 11 (Reuters) - Peace between Syria and Israel is "very possible", a Trump-linked evangelical Christian pastor said after he and a pro-Israel American rabbi held talks this week with Syria's Islamist leader Ahmed al-Sharaa at the presidential palace in Damascus. Rev. Johnnie Moore, a White House adviser during President Donald Trump's first term, and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, from the Jewish human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center, have promoted interfaith dialogue in Arab states for years. The two men met Sharaa late on Monday during a visit to Syria that they said was not aimed at discussing potential ties with Israel, though the topic came up. "I think peace is very possible, if not probable, but the first priority has to be Syria focusing on Syria," Moore told Reuters in a phone interview late on Tuesday, after they had concluded their trip. Sharaa "articulated issues of concern he has, but also the potential for a very positive future", Moore added. A Syrian presidency media official did not respond to a request for comment. Since ousting former strongman Bashar al-Assad last year, Syria's Sunni Muslim rulers, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have rapidly built international ties. But tensions persist with religious minority groups inside Syria, such as Druze and Alawites, as well as with neighbouring Israel. Cooper's visits to nations such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, which had no ties with Israel at the time, are credited by some observers with indirectly paving the way for landmark 2020 deals normalising relations. Efforts by the U.S. to bring more Arab states, chiefly Saudi Arabia, into the deals known as the Abraham Accords have faltered amid regional outrage over the deaths of more than 50,000 Palestinians as a result of Israel's war in Gaza following Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Still, Syria's new rulers have from the outset indicated that they seek calm and even eventual peace with Israel. Moore and Cooper said they believed Sharaa was uniquely able to deliver on a peace-making agenda. "The Syrian president is what in Silicon Valley is called a unicorn; he's one of a kind," Moore said. Cooper added: "What's clear is there is now a window of opportunity to bring about a more positive state of affairs... [though] that doesn't minimize the scale of the task ahead." Last week, Moore was named as the new executive chairman of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has begun distributing aid to the Palestinian territory in an operation that uses private U.S. security and logistics companies and has been criticised by the United Nations. Moore, who has publicly backed Trump's proposal for the United States to take over Gaza, said he did not discuss the GHF and its work with Sharaa during their meeting. Moore and Cooper proposed to Sharaa joint humanitarian projects "to tear down stereotypes and create an unofficial army of goodwill ambassadors". They declined to give details. The two men also met with Syrian Christian leaders and walked freely around Damascus, Cooper wearing his yarmulke without issue, he said. This contrasted with a 2024 visit to Saudi Arabia, where Cooper was asked by a Saudi official to remove his prayer cap, a request he refused, after which the U.S.-Congress mandated delegation he was heading cut short their trip. Israeli officials initially branded Syria's new rulers as "terrorists" due to their al Qaeda past and the Israeli airforce waged a fierce campaign of aerial bombardment that has subsided since mid-May, when Trump turned decades of U.S. policy on its head by lifting sanctions on Syria and meeting Sharaa in Riyadh. After meeting Sharaa, Trump said the Syrian leader had agreed to a request to normalize ties with Israel, though it would take time. Reuters has reported that Syria and Israel in the past weeks held indirect, and then direct talks aimed at calming tensions.
Straits Times
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Pro-Israel rabbi and Trump-linked pastor visit Syria, say peace is possible
FILE PHOTO: Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper is pictured in his office at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, California December 10, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo Pro-Israel rabbi and Trump-linked pastor visit Syria, say peace is possible BEIRUT - Peace between Syria and Israel is "very possible", a Trump-linked evangelical Christian pastor said after he and a pro-Israel American rabbi held talks this week with Syria's Islamist leader Ahmed al-Sharaa at the presidential palace in Damascus. Rev. Johnnie Moore, a White House adviser during President Donald Trump's first term, and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, from the Jewish human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center, have promoted interfaith dialogue in Arab states for years. The two men met Sharaa late on Monday during a visit to Syria that they said was not aimed at discussing potential ties with Israel, though the topic came up. "I think peace is very possible, if not probable, but the first priority has to be Syria focusing on Syria," Moore told Reuters in a phone interview late on Tuesday, after they had concluded their trip. Sharaa "articulated issues of concern he has, but also the potential for a very positive future", Moore added. A Syrian presidency media official did not respond to a request for comment. Since ousting former strongman Bashar al-Assad last year, Syria's Sunni Muslim rulers, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have rapidly built international ties. But tensions persist with religious minority groups inside Syria, such as Druze and Alawites, as well as with neighbouring Israel. Cooper's visits to nations such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, which had no ties with Israel at the time, are credited by some observers with indirectly paving the way for landmark 2020 deals normalising relations. Efforts by the U.S. to bring more Arab states, chiefly Saudi Arabia, into the deals known as the Abraham Accords have faltered amid regional outrage over the deaths of more than 50,000 Palestinians as a result of Israel's war in Gaza following Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. 'UNICORN' Still, Syria's new rulers have from the outset indicated that they seek calm and even eventual peace with Israel. Moore and Cooper said they believed Sharaa was uniquely able to deliver on a peace-making agenda. "The Syrian president is what in Silicon Valley is called a unicorn; he's one of a kind," Moore said. Cooper added: "What's clear is there is now a window of opportunity to bring about a more positive state of affairs... [though] that doesn't minimize the scale of the task ahead." Last week, Moore was named as the new executive chairman of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has begun distributing aid to the Palestinian territory in an operation that uses private U.S. security and logistics companies and has been criticised by the United Nations. Moore, who has publicly backed Trump's proposal for the United States to take over Gaza, said he did not discuss the GHF and its work with Sharaa during their meeting. Moore and Cooper proposed to Sharaa joint humanitarian projects "to tear down stereotypes and create an unofficial army of goodwill ambassadors". They declined to give details. The two men also met with Syrian Christian leaders and walked freely around Damascus, Cooper wearing his yarmulke without issue, he said. This contrasted with a 2024 visit to Saudi Arabia, where Cooper was asked by a Saudi official to remove his prayer cap, a request he refused, after which the U.S.-Congress mandated delegation he was heading cut short their trip. Israeli officials initially branded Syria's new rulers as "terrorists" due to their al Qaeda past and the Israeli airforce waged a fierce campaign of aerial bombardment that has subsided since mid-May, when Trump turned decades of U.S. policy on its head by lifting sanctions on Syria and meeting Sharaa in Riyadh. After meeting Sharaa, Trump said the Syrian leader had agreed to a request to normalize ties with Israel, though it would take time. Reuters has reported that Syria and Israel in the past weeks held indirect, and then direct talks aimed at calming tensions. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
