Original Author: angelilu, Foresight News
A year ago, Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) and the cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com joined forces with great fanfare, announcing plans to establish a listed treasury company to hoard billions of dollars worth of CRO. At that time, this politically connected company and a leading exchange put on a grand show, creating immense buzz. One year later, this capital game has ended in disappointment.
On August 7, DJT, Crypto.com, and the SPAC company Yorkville officially announced the termination of this plan, along with the previously announced cooperation on the prediction market and ETF custody solutions. Bitcoin has nearly halved from its peak, and listed accumulation-focused companies are collectively receding—this partnership, which started with political proximity, ultimately never made it to the implementation chapter.
How Far Did the Halted Cooperation Progress?
The most significant part of this deal was to create another listed CRO treasury company. In August 2025, the three parties loudly declared: Trump Media would use the SPAC company Yorkville as a shell to establish a company called Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, claiming it would be the "first and largest listed CRO treasury company," planning to accumulate approximately 6.313 billion CRO—close to one-fifth of CRO's circulating supply at the time. The entire company scale was about $6.42 billion, built on $1 billion in CRO, $200 million in cash, $220 million in warrants, and a $5 billion equity credit line.
However, despite the grand announcements, this treasury plan never truly materialized. What was announced in August 2025 was only a framework agreement; the process of going public via a shell still required a lengthy series of SEC filings and approvals, which would have taken the better part of a year; it remained in a "to-be-completed" state until it was directly halted a year later, never being established.
Two accompanying plans also fell through. The prediction market product Truth Predict, which was originally to be integrated into Truth Social—allowing users to bet on political, economic, and sports events—has now been scaled down to a mere marketing partnership, with Crypto.com only promoting its own prediction market to Truth Social users. The arrangement for Crypto.com to provide custody for ETFs under Trump Media has also been abandoned.
The only part that was actually implemented and remains effective is another independent agreement. In August 2025, Trump Media spent approximately $105 million to purchase CRO for its balance sheet, while Crypto.com reciprocated by buying $50 million worth of DJT stock. This transaction is settled and unaffected by the termination, becoming the sole unbroken link in this dissolution.
Political Alignment First, Business Deal Later
To understand why Crypto.com was chosen for this game, one must look back—it was political alignment that paved the way for business dealings.
Around the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Crypto.com had been extending olive branches to the Trump camp: it donated $1 million to the inauguration and contributed $10 million to the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc.; CEO Kris Marszalek also personally visited Mar-a-Lago to discuss crypto policy with Trump face-to-face. In March 2025, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) closed its investigation into Crypto.com—shortly before, the agency had issued warnings to the exchange regarding potential enforcement actions.
Once the relationship was smoothed, the business cooperation in August 2025 followed naturally. Trump Media wanted a crypto narrative, a batch of tokens for its balance sheet, and an ETF custodian; Crypto.com, on the other hand, sought to leverage Trump's influence to endorse its own CRO token.
This is precisely why the deal carried an air of conflict of interest from the very day it was announced—the Trump administration itself held the power to regulate the crypto industry, yet a company linked to his family was deeply entangled with an exchange that had just made donations and was recently cleared by the SEC. Senators like Elizabeth Warren publicly called for investigations into whether political factors influenced the SEC's decision.
Why Was It Pulled? Price and Market Conditions Offer No Opportunity
The official explanation was quite frank. Crypto.com's CEO Kris Marszalek stated in the announcement: "After examining these proposed ETFs and DATs from every angle, we reached the same conclusion—it is not reasonable to continue advancing under current market conditions." He also noted that the company would repurpose the CRO originally committed to the treasury to drive revenue, demand, and ecosystem value. According to a report by The Block, sources close to the deal revealed that this shift was more due to changes in the competitive landscape rather than concerns over the awkward situation of "a Trump-linked enterprise being regulated by the Trump administration."
But the market had already written the answer in the price. As of publication, CRO is trading at approximately $0.0616, having fallen about 70% over the past year—a continuous decline since the announcement of the partnership last year.
Looking at the bigger picture, Bitcoin has dropped from its peak of around $126,000 in October 2025 to about $65,000 now, nearly halving. The hype around listed accumulation-focused companies is receding overall—data from early January 2026 showed that at least 37 of the world's top 100 DATs were trading below their net asset value (NAV) held in tokens. Even the industry benchmark Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) was trading at a discount and had started selling Bitcoin to cover dividends for its preferred stock.
When the tide goes out, who would want to build another multi-billion-dollar CRO treasury?
Trump Media's Next Stop: Turning to Nuclear Fusion
With the crypto story extinguished, Trump Media has already pivoted in a direction that has little to do with crypto. In December 2025, the company announced an all-stock merger with nuclear fusion company TAE Technologies, with a valuation exceeding $6 billion. Shareholders of both companies would own approximately half of the combined entity upon completion, expected by mid-2026. Founded in 1998, this nuclear fusion company will use Trump Media as a vehicle to enter the capital markets. The post-merger focus has clearly shifted from social media and crypto to clean energy.
In other words, the termination of the CRO treasury plan is not an isolated retreat, but part of Trump Media's broader strategic pivot—it is busy rebranding itself from a "Trump-themed crypto player" to a company betting on cutting-edge energy technology.
