Written by Michelle Conlin
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Several key players in President-elect Donald Trump's new cryptocurrency venture headed to Abu Dhabi on Monday for the Gulf region's largest Bitcoin gathering, as the cryptocurrency soars to record highs.
Speakers included the president-elect's son Eric, the new White House special envoy to the Middle East, and CEO of World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency platform that Donald Trump and his family helped found and launched in September. They include co-founder Steve Witkoff, a billionaire.
Eric Trump will give a keynote address Tuesday at the MENA conference, which is expected to draw more than 6,000 people, followed by a “whale-only” chat in the conference's VIP lounge, according to the event agenda.
Mr. Witkoff also plans to speak separately to a more exclusive crowd that requires a $9,999 “whale” pass, a nickname for major companies that can move the market.
According to the WLF website, the president-elect is World Liberty Financial's chief advocate for cryptocurrencies, and his sons Eric, Don Jr., and Barron serve as ambassadors. According to the company's filing, Donald Trump will be entitled to 22.5 billion WLF tokens and a portion of the proceeds.
“The Bitcoin conference was focused on bringing the industry together,” said Marshall Beard, chief operating officer of Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange founded by Trump supporters Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. It is one of the longest running conferences and has great significance for cryptocurrencies.”
“It’s incredible to see the rise of Bitcoin along with the growth of conferences…and crypto became a major campaign issue in this year’s presidential election.”
Other speakers have close ties to World Liberty Financial, including Justin Sun, 32, the Chinese founder of blockchain platform Tron.
Three weeks after Trump won the Nov. 5 election, Sun posted that he had bought $30 million worth of WLF tokens in X, making him the venture's largest investor. Sun was indicted under the Biden administration on charges of cryptocurrency fraud and securities violations.
The Gulf rally comes at a tipping point for the industry, as Trump, a former crypto skeptic, has vowed to become the “crypto president” and make America the new “crypto capital of the planet.”
Buoyed by these promises, Bitcoin hit $100,000 last week, breaking records.
President Trump also named former PayPal (NASDAQ:) executive David Sachs, a close friend of Trump advisor and mega-donor Elon Musk, as White House czar of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies.
Records show that Musk, whose portfolio includes companies such as X, SpaceX and Tesla (NASDAQ:), spent more than $250 million to help elect Trump in 2024. Other technology and digital asset veterans also donated millions of dollars to industry-friendly candidates, according to analytics firm Breadcrumbs.
Trump's 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort will speak at the conference titled “The Political Life of the Man Closest to Donald Trump.''
Binance founder Chao Changpeng, who served a four-month prison sentence in the United States this year for violating cryptocurrency-related money laundering laws, will also hold a whale session at the conference.
President Trump, his family, other speakers and their companies did not respond to requests for comment.
