Bitcoin Tops $101,000 on Monday. Several key players in President-elect Donald Trump's new cryptocurrency venture head to Abu Dhabi on Monday for the largest bitcoin gathering in the Gulf region as the digital currency sets record highs.
Eric Trump will deliver Tuesday's keynote address at the Bitcoin MENA conference, which is projected to draw more than 6,000 people, and will then hold a "whale-only" chat in the conference's VIP lounge, according to the event's agenda.
The president-elect is World Liberty Financial's chief crypto advocate, and sons Eric, Don Jr. and Barron are ambassadors, according to the WLF website. Company filings show Donald Trump is entitled to 22.5 billion WLF tokens and a share of its revenues.
"The bitcoin conference carries a lot of significance for crypto as it's one of the longest-running conferences focused on bringing our industry together," said Marshall Beard, chief operating officer of Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by Trump backers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
"It’s been incredible to see the rise of bitcoin alongside the growth of the conference ... and crypto became a major campaign issue in this year’s presidential election."
Other speakers also have close ties to World Liberty Financial, including Justin Sun, the 32-year-old Chinese founder of blockchain platform Tron.
Three weeks after Trump won the Nov. 5 election, Sun posted on X that he bought $30 million worth of WLF tokens, making him the venture's largest investor. Sun was charged with crypto-related fraud and securities violations under the Biden administration.
The Gulf gathering is occurring at an inflection point for the industry as Trump, once a crypto skeptic, has vowed he will be the "crypto president" and make America the new "crypto capital of the planet."