The $750,000 Elevator Ride: Inside Trump Tower’s Crypto Business

When Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, he signed an executive order allowing 401(k) retirement funds to invest in cryptocurrencies.

A month later, American Bitcoin went public on Nasdaq, marketing itself as the future "world's largest Bitcoin mining enterprise."

The company's major shareholders? Trump's sons Eric and Donald Jr.

Behind both developments lies a lesser-known company: Dominari Holdings. Connected to the Trump family and riding the crypto wave, Dominari's stock price rocketed from $1.09 to $6.09 in early 2025, a staggering 450% increase.

Few remembered that just four years earlier, Dominari had been a struggling pharmaceutical company losing money.

This dramatic transformation did not happen by accident. It is the story of two middle-aged businessmen, lawyer turned entrepreneur Anthony Hayes and Wall Street veteran Kyle Wool, who turned a $750,000 annual rent payment into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

Their strategy was elegantly simple.

They moved into Trump Tower and became neighbors with Trump’s sons.

An Expensive Decision

In 2021, Anthony Hayes inherited a failing company.

At the time, it wasn't called Dominari Holdings but AIkido Pharma, a biopharmaceutical firm that had spent years burning through cash on drug research and development without bringing a single product to market. By the end of 2023, SEC filings showed the company had accumulated over $223 million in losses, with its stock price stuck around $1.

Hayes wasn't a pharmaceutical expert. He was a lawyer who had been a partner at a top-100 U.S. law firm before founding a company specializing in intellectual property transactions. After taking over AIkido, he made two crucial decisions: abandon the pharmaceutical business entirely, and relocate the company to Trump Tower.

To execute this plan, he brought in Kyle Wool. With more than two decades on Wall Street, Wool had built a career that spanned senior roles at Morgan Stanley and Oppenheimer, where he also led Asian wealth management operations. Beyond finance, he became a familiar face on Fox Business, often joining Maria Bartiromo’s morning show.

But what did moving into Trump Tower actually cost?

According to the company’s annual report, rental expenses skyrocketed from $140,000 in 2022 to $773,000 in 2023. At the time, the firm had just over 20 employees. By Manhattan standards, that amount could easily secure an entire floor in a top-tier office building.

More crucially, the company was still losing money. In the first half of 2025 alone, it recorded losses of $14.8 million. Spending nearly $800,000 on office rent appeared completely irrational.

But Hayes and Wool weren't paying for workspace. They were paying for proximity. Trump's two sons, Eric and Donald Jr., had offices just upstairs. A single elevator ride could create a "chance encounter." A mutual acquaintance's dinner invitation could put them at the same table.

Within Trump Tower, they saw an opportunity to become part of the Trump business ecosystem.

Business Upstairs and Downstairs

Building relationships takes time and finesse.

According to The Wall Street Journal, after moving into Trump Tower, Hayes and Wool embarked on a long game of "social investing." Golf tournaments, charity galas, private parties: any occasion that could provide a "natural" encounter with Trump's sons became essential.

This investment paid off in February 2025. Dominari announced that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump had joined the company's advisory board, alongside three senior executives from the Trump Organization.

Their involvement went beyond symbolism. Each invested $1 million through a private placement to purchase around 216,000 shares, and each received an additional 750,000 shares as compensation for their advisory roles. The news sent Dominari's stock soaring from $1.09 to $13, a surge of more than 1,200% at its peak.

Even after the price settled, the brothers' investments had multiplied several times over. According to Bloomberg, Eric Trump currently holds about 6.3% of the company's shares, worth more than $5 million.

That was only the beginning. On March 31, Dominari announced a partnership with Canadian-listed company Hut 8 to form American Bitcoin. The positioning was deliberate: not just a Bitcoin mining operation, but one branded with "Made in America," perfectly aligned with Trump's "America First" policy.

In this deal, Hut 8 contributed $115 million worth of mining equipment and took 80% of the equity. Dominari received just 3%. Although small in percentage terms, by the end of June that 3% stake was valued at $32 million, becoming one of Dominari's most significant assets.

More importantly, the venture marked the Trump family's official entry into the Bitcoin mining industry. Eric Trump personally holds an additional 9% stake in American Bitcoin.

On August 27, Dominari went further by establishing a cryptocurrency advisory board and appointing two industry heavyweights: Sonny Singh, the former BitPay executive who helped secure New York's crypto license and launched one of the first crypto debit cards, and Tristan Chaudhry, a DeFi developer and early investor in Litecoin and Dogecoin.

"Digital assets are no longer on the periphery of finance. They are moving into the center," said CEO Hayes at the announcement.

That statement may have unintentionally captured the truth: under Trump, crypto has indeed shifted from the margins to the mainstream, and those who positioned themselves early are now reaping enormous rewards.

Dancers in the Grey Zone

On Wall Street, connections often speak louder than financial statements. The list of Dominari's shareholders and its network of relationships sketch out a picture of a company moving in the grey zones of finance and politics.

In March 2025, an investor named Peter Benz, through Blue Finn Group, became a 5.7% shareholder in Dominari. What makes this noteworthy is Benz's past role as a director of multiple companies, including IDI, Inc. Executives of that firm, Michael Brauser and Philip Frost, were later charged by the SEC in a $27 million stock fraud case.

Although Benz himself has never been accused of any wrongdoing, this tenuous association highlights the environment in which Dominari operates: an ecosystem brimming with opportunities, yet teetering on the edge of regulatory scrutiny.

Even more nuanced is Kyle Wool's background. While at Morgan Stanley, his team handled business tied to Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden. From working within Democratic Party circles to now steering ventures for the Trump family, Wool has witnessed and participated in the polarized games of American power.

But the real issue lies not in these connections, but in the company's financial logic.

According to Bloomberg, in the second quarter of 2025, Dominari reported $34 million in revenue, a year-over-year increase of 452%. Yet during the same period, administrative expenses reached $53.5 million. Stock options granted to CEO Hayes and President Wool alone amounted to $26.1 million.

In other words, every dollar earned was insufficient to cover operating costs, let alone generate profit. The company's most valuable asset remained its 3% stake in American Bitcoin, a newly launched mining enterprise whose profitability was still uncertain.

Investors, however, were unfazed.

What they were buying was not current earnings, but an idea: Dominari as the Trump family's proxy in the crypto world. This, perhaps, is the company's true business model: converting political capital into market valuation.

The Trump Family's Trusted Broker

Dominari's ambitions extend far beyond its own investments. Its real value lies in acting as the "super-connector" between the Trump family and the crypto world. The Wall Street Journal once described it as the Trump family's "go-to dealmaker."

Three cases illustrate this role most clearly.

The first involves World Liberty Financial (WLFI) and its tangled dealings with Justin Sun.

In September 2025, when WLFI tokens began trading, entities controlled by the Trump family held 22.5 billion tokens. This created an instant paper windfall of roughly $5 billion at prevailing prices.

But the project nearly collapsed. According to Bloomberg, WLFI's initial sale flopped, raising only 7% of its target, far below the minimum threshold required to trigger payments to the Trumps. At that critical moment, Justin Sun stepped in with a $30 million investment, pushing the sale past the line.

Sun later expanded his investment to $75 million, making him the project's largest backer.

Even more significant was what happened on the other side of the relationship. Dominari Securities facilitated Tron's entry into U.S. capital markets through a reverse merger. On June 16, 2025, SRM Entertainment announced a deal with Tron. By July 24, the renamed Tron Inc. rang the opening bell on Nasdaq, officially completing its listing. In this transaction, Sun's Tron acquired a toy manufacturer that supplied Disney and Universal Studios.

In serving both the Trump family and Justin Sun, Dominari positioned itself as the bridge connecting their interests. When Sun needed a pathway into American capital markets, Dominari delivered. When the Trump family's project was desperate for cash, Sun appeared with the rescue funds.

The second case was Dominari's direct orchestration of the recent tie-up between Nasdaq-listed Safety Shot and BONK.

On August 11, 2025, Safety Shot announced it would exchange $35 million in equity for $25 million worth of BONK tokens. The exclusive financial advisor for the deal was none other than Dominari Securities.

Dominari designed the entire structure: Safety Shot secured a 10% revenue share from the BONK.fun platform, changed its ticker to BNKK, and gave the BONK team 50% of the board seats.

Dominari Holdings President Kyle Wool later publicly praised the advisory board, particularly Eric Trump, for helping facilitate the partnership. In effect, his comments acknowledged the Trump family's pivotal role in sealing the deal.

The third case was the Trump family's push into data centers and Bitcoin mining, as mentioned earlier.

In the creation of American Bitcoin, Eric Trump emerged as the largest individual investor, holding roughly 7.5% of the company. Dominari Holdings owned around 3%, while both Trump sons served as advisors to Dominari itself, each holding about 6 to 7% of its shares.

Behind every major deal, Dominari's fingerprints are unmistakable. At times it plays the role of front-facing financial advisor, at others the quiet coordinator in the background. More broadly, it has become the architect, operator, and executor of the Trump family's crypto empire.

A New Order in Trump Tower

Dominari's website shows its headquarters on the 22nd floor of Trump Tower. From Wool's office, Central Park stretches out in view. The company now pays $62,242 in rent each month.

Just upstairs, Trump's sons hold political capital and the family brand. Downstairs, Dominari provides Wall Street expertise and execution. Deals are conceived and sealed in the space between elevator rides.

Each successful transaction seems to reinforce this symbiotic relationship.

While traditional investment banks pursue projects through formal channels, Dominari has discovered a more direct path: living beneath power itself, with the elevator as a conduit to wealth.

On August 14, standing on the Nasdaq floor to ring the opening bell, Kyle Wool said:

"I think the ride has just begun. And in the famous words of our president, the best is yet to come."

That may prove true. With Trump rolling out more crypto-friendly policies, and more traditional companies seeking entry into Web3, Dominari's brokerage business is likely to become even more prosperous.

Paying several times the market rate to move into Trump Tower may, in hindsight, be the shrewdest investment of Wool and Hayes's careers.

The steep annual rent bought more than just admission to the Trump family's business circle. It secured physical proximity, social integration, and commercial alignment.

From a pharmaceutical company on the verge of collapse to an investment firm nearing a $100 million valuation, from an obscure tenant to the Trump family's crypto broker, Dominari's transformation is, in many ways, a microcosm of Trump-era American capitalism.

In this era, the boundary between politics and business has blurred like never before. Dominari operates like an invisible conductor, converting political capital into business opportunities, and turning power relationships into tangible wealth.

In Trump's America, the most profitable venture may not be running a business itself, but becoming the connector that links them all.

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