Original author: David, TechFlow

In January 2025, Trump returned to the White House. Among the executive orders he signed, one was particularly eye-catching: allowing 401(k) retirement funds to invest in cryptocurrencies.

A month after the policy announcement, a company called American Bitcoin went public on the Nasdaq. Claiming to be the "world's largest bitcoin mining company," major shareholders include Trump's sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

Connecting these events is a company few people have heard of: Dominari Holdings .

After being associated with the Trump family and crypto narratives, its stock price also rose from $1.09 at the beginning of the year to $6.09, an increase of more than 450%.

The company's transformation has been so drastic that many people have forgotten that just four years ago, it was a pharmaceutical company that had been making losses for years.

This is a story about how $750,000 in annual rent can be leveraged into a multi-million dollar business. The protagonists are not crypto tycoons or Wall Street giants, but two savvy middle-aged men: lawyer Anthony Hayes and Wall Street veteran Kyle Wool.

Their secret to wealth was simple: move into Trump Tower and become neighbors with the Trump sons.

Expensive decision

In 2021, Anthony Hayes is dealing with a mess.

When he took over, the company wasn't called Dominari Holdings, but rather AIkido Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company. Like many similar companies, it had spent years investing in new drug research and development without ever bringing a product to market. According to SEC filings, by the end of 2023, the company had accumulated over $223 million in debt. Its stock price had long hovered around $1.

(Source: NasdaqCM:DOMH Earnings and Revenue History August 12, 2024)

Hayes isn't a pharmaceutical expert; he's a lawyer. He was once a partner at a top 100 US law firm and later founded a firm specializing in intellectual property transactions. After taking over AIkido, he made two decisions:

One is to give up the pharmaceutical business, and the other is to move the company into Trump Tower.

To that end, he recruited Kyle Wool. Wool had spent over 20 years on Wall Street and possessed a stellar resume: a former executive director at Morgan Stanley and managing director at Oppenheimer, where he led Asia's wealth management business. He was also a frequent guest on Fox Business and the Maria Bartiromo Morning Show.

What does it mean to move into Trump Tower?

According to the company's annual report, rent expenses skyrocketed from $140,000 in 2022 to $773,000 in 2023. At the time, the company had just over 20 employees. By Manhattan standards, that amount was enough to rent an entire floor of a Class A office building.

More importantly, the company was still losing money. It had lost $14.8 million in the first half of 2025. Spending so much money on office space seemed irrational.

But Hayes and Wool weren't attracted by the office environment. Trump's sons, Eric and Donald Jr., worked upstairs. They bumped into each other on the elevators and even sat at the same table at mutual friends' dinners.

In Trump Tower, they may have the opportunity to become part of Trump's business ecosystem.

Business upstairs and downstairs

Cultivating relationships takes time and skill.

According to the Wall Street Journal, after moving into Trump Tower, Hayes and Wool began a lengthy "social investment." They attended golf tournaments, charity dinners, private parties, and any other occasion where they could "naturally" run into the Trump sons.

This investment borne fruit in February 2025, when Dominari announced that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump had joined the company's advisory board, along with three top Trump Organization executives.

The brothers' joining was more than symbolic. They each invested $1 million in a private placement to purchase approximately 216,000 shares, and received an additional 750,000 shares as compensation for their advisory roles. Upon the announcement, Dominari's stock price soared from $1.09 to $13, a peak increase of over 1,200%.

Even after a subsequent decline, the brothers' investment has multiplied several times over. According to Bloomberg data, Eric Trump currently holds about 6.3% of the shares, worth more than $5 million.

But this is just the beginning. On March 31st, Dominari announced a partnership with Canadian publicly listed company Hut 8 to establish American Bitcoin. This company's positioning is intriguing: it's not just about mining Bitcoin, but also about promoting "Made in America" products, aligning with Trump's "America First" policy.

In this transaction, Hut 8 contributed $115 million worth of mining equipment and took an 80% stake. Dominari received only 3%. While this may seem like a small percentage, by the end of June, this 3% was worth $32 million, making it one of Dominari's most significant assets.

More importantly, through this platform, the Trump family officially entered the Bitcoin mining industry. Eric Trump also personally holds an additional 9% stake in American Bitcoin.

On August 27, Dominari established a cryptocurrency advisory committee and hired two heavyweights:

Sonny Singh, a former BitPay executive, helped BitPay obtain a crypto license in New York State and launched the first crypto debit cards; the other is DeFi developer Tristan Chaudhry, an early investor in Litecoin and Dogecoin.

“Digital assets are no longer on the fringes of finance, they are moving into the center,” CEO Hayes said in announcing the committee.

This statement may have inadvertently revealed the truth: in the Trump era, cryptocurrencies have indeed moved from the fringe to the mainstream, and those who got in place early are reaping huge rewards.

Dancer in the gray area

On Wall Street, personal connections often speak louder than financial statements. Dominari's shareholder list and network paint a picture of a company treading in a gray area.

In March 2025, an investor named Peter Benz, through the Blue Finn Group, became a major shareholder in Dominari with a 5.7% stake. Interestingly, Benz previously served on the boards of several companies, including IDI, Inc., whose executives, Michael Brauser and Philip Frost, were later indicted by the SEC for participating in a $27 million stock fraud scheme.

Although Benz himself has never been accused of any wrongdoing, this ambiguous relationship illustrates the ecosystem in which Dominari operates: full of opportunities but also on the edge of regulation.

Even more subtle is Kyle Wool's resume.

While at Morgan Stanley, his team handled business related to Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's former business partner. From serving in the Democratic Party to now working for the Trump family, Wool has witnessed and participated in both ends of the American power game.

But the real problem is not these relationships, but the company's financial logic.

According to Bloomberg, Dominari's revenue in the second quarter of 2025 was $34 million, a 452% year-on-year increase; however, its management expenses in the same period were $53.5 million. Of this, stock options granted to CEO Hayes and President Wool were worth $26.1 million.

In other words, every penny the company earns isn't enough to cover operating costs, let alone profits. Its largest asset is a 3% stake in American Bitcoin, a newly established Bitcoin mining company whose profitability remains uncertain.

But investors don't care.

What they’re buying isn’t immediate profits, but a concept: the Trump family’s proxy in the crypto world. This may be Dominari’s true business model: converting political capital into market valuation.

Royal Broker

Dominari's ambitions extend far beyond its own investments. Its true value lies in serving as a "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 best illustrate this point.

The first is the complex entanglement between World Liberty Financial (WLFI) and Justin Sun.

In September 2025, when WLFI tokens began trading, entities controlled by the Trump family held 22.5 billion tokens, an increase of approximately $5 billion in paper wealth at the price at the time.

But the project nearly failed. According to Bloomberg, WLFI's initial sales were dismal, with a completion rate of only 7%, failing to even meet the minimum threshold required to trigger payments to Trump. At a crucial moment, Sun invested $30 million, helping the project cross the threshold.

Subsequently, Justin Sun's investment increased to US$75 million, making him the project's largest investor.

More importantly, Dominari Securities also facilitated Tron's listing on the Nasdaq via a reverse merger. On June 16, 2025, SRM Entertainment announced an agreement with Tron; on July 24, the renamed Tron Inc. rang the bell on the Nasdaq, officially completing its listing. In this transaction, Justin Sun's Tron acquired a toy manufacturer that supplied Disney and Universal Studios.

Dominari serves both the Trump family and Justin Sun, serving as a bridge connecting their interests. When Sun needed access to the US capital markets, Dominari provided it; when the Trump family's project needed lifeline funding, Sun showed up.

The second case is Dominari’s direct manipulation of the recent marriage between Safety Shot and BONK, both US-listed companies.

On August 11, 2025, Nasdaq-listed Safety Shot announced it would exchange $35 million in equity for $25 million in BONK tokens. Dominari Securities was the exclusive financial advisor for this transaction.

Dominari led the entire transaction structure: Safety Shot received a 10% share of the BONK.fun platform's revenue, the stock code was changed to BNKK, and the BONK team obtained 50% of the board seats.

Dominari Holdings President Kyle Wool later publicly praised the advisory board, and Eric Trump in particular, for helping to facilitate the partnerships, effectively acknowledging the Trump family's key role in the deals.

Third, it is the Trump family’s layout in data centers and Bitcoin mining as mentioned above.

Eric Trump held approximately 7.5% of American Bitcoin's shares, making him the largest individual investor. Dominari Holdings holds approximately 3% of American Bitcoin. The two Trump sons also serve as advisors to Dominari, each holding approximately 6-7% of the company's shares.

Behind every major transaction lies Dominari, a company that sometimes acts as a financial advisor, sometimes as a coordinator behind the scenes, and even more so as the operator, designer, and executor of the Trump family's crypto empire.

Trump Tower's New Order

Dominari's website shows that the company's headquarters is located on the 22nd floor of Trump Tower. Wool's office overlooks Central Park. They currently pay $62,242 per month in rent.

Upstairs in the building, Trump's sons control political resources and the family brand; downstairs , Dominari provides Wall Street expertise and execution; and deals are being conceived and done in the elevators.

Every successful transaction may be strengthening this symbiotic relationship.

While traditional investment banks are still seeking projects through formal channels, Dominari has found a more direct path: living downstairs from the powerful and letting the elevator of wealth lead directly to his own office.

On August 14, Kyle Wool stood at Nasdaq and rang the opening bell and said:

"It's been a thrilling journey. In the words of our President Trump, the best is yet to come."

This statement may be true. As Trump introduces more pro-crypto policies and as more traditional companies seek to enter Web 3, Dominari's brokerage business will only become more prosperous.

Paying several times the market rent to move into Trump Tower now seems like the shrewdest investment of Wool and Hayes' careers.

The expensive annual rent not only brings a ticket to the Trump family's business circle, but also physical proximity, social integration, and business ties.

From a pharmaceutical company on the brink of bankruptcy to an investment firm with a market value of nearly 100 million yuan; from an unknown tenant to the Trump family's crypto broker, Dominari's transformation is, to some extent, a microcosm of American capitalism in the Trump era.

In this era, the boundaries between politics and business are more blurred than ever. This company acts like an invisible conductor, transforming political capital into business opportunities and converting power relations into real money.

In the Trump era of America, the best business is not to do business itself, but to become a connector of all businesses.

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