Trump Raises $1 Million By Selling NFT Trading Cards By Himself: Report
- Donald Trump’s recent “big” announcement was that he was selling NFT ‘trading cards’ of his own.
- The NFTs were originally priced at $99 each, but some sold for thousands of dollars.
- The cards sold out early Friday and some buyers were entered to win a “priceless” meeting at Mar-a-Lago.
Donald Trump’s latest campaign stunt was to sell non-fungible token (NFT) trading cards of himself. Prices for the cards soared from $99 to thousands of dollars before selling out early Friday morning as supporters flocked to the site.
“Don’t wait. They’ll be gone, I think, very quickly!” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time of publication.
—Joey Garrison (@joeygarrison) 16 December 2022
Trump’s “big” announcement came Thursday when he released limited-edition virtual trading cards, which he compared to baseball cards.
The trading cards, which were licensed and owned by NFT INT LLC, not Trump or the Trump Organization, featured images that Trump says relate to his own life, showing him as a race car driver, astronaut, boxer, sheriff and elephant rider.
One card featuring Trump holding the Statue of Liberty’s torch sold for nearly $24,000, according to Open Sea. The entire collection has brought in over $1 million, according to Coin Desk reporting, which will go directly to Trump, rather than his presidential campaign.
There were 45,000 digital cards made and ready for sale on their website. Buyers were entered into a contest at the time of purchase to win “priceless” prizes, including a dinner with Trump in Miami, a group cocktail hour at Mar-A-Lago, a one-on-one meeting with the 45th president, a round of golf with Trump and friends, Zoom sessions and autographed memorabilia.
Winners of the prizes are responsible for covering their own travel and accommodation costs, according to the project’s website. The fine print also says that it is not necessary to buy in.
—unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) 15 December 2022
The cards were criticized even by some of Trump’s fiercest defenders. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who featured right-wing commentators Sebastian Gorka and Steve Cotes on his “War Room” show Thursday, said Trump may be “one of the greatest presidents ever,” but the person who came up with the idea “should have been fired today.”
“The president should not be involved in this,” Gorka said, agreeing with Bannon. “Whoever wrote that pitch should be fired and should never be involved.”
Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump, also said on the radio program “Prophets and Patriots” on Thursday that Trump should fire whoever advised him on this “immediately”.
The original profit estimate for the creators of the NFTs was about $4.5 million, and it remains unclear whether Trump will receive sales profits.
