By Francisco Alvarado, FloridaBulldog.org
A Miami crypto bro whose company has ties to the Trump family’s meme coin racket is the latest beneficiary of the Federal Elections Commission’s recent practice of giving a pass to wealthy donors who conceal their identities.
Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO of MoonPay, a Miami-based company that processes digital coin transactions, failed to disclose he was the true source of $500,000 donated in 2022 to SOS America, a political action committee (PAC) formed to support Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s anemic bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Suarez was the first candidate to drop out after consistently polling under one percent.
In March, the FEC concluded that Soto-Wright failed to file a disclosure form for the SOS America contribution made through his Delaware entity, Passionforest LLC, but let him off the hook for violating a federal ban on straw donors.
The commission also determined that Soto-Wright did not make the contribution on behalf of a foreign national, and he won’t have to pay a civil penalty, ending a two-year-old complaint by the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based watchdog organization.
“The FEC’s decision to dismiss our complaint against Passionforest LLC and Ivan Soto-Wright without assessing a penalty is part of a larger pattern of the FEC minimizing straw donor violations,” Shanna Ports, a Campaign Legal Center senior legal counsel, told Florida Bulldog in an email. “The FEC announced a policy stating that it would treat an LLC’s failure to disclose its beneficial owner[s] as a routine compliance issue rather than as a straw donor scheme.”
Soto-Wright, MoonPay spokespersons and Samuel Brown and Charles Borden, Passionforest’s Washington-based attorneys with Tampa-based Holland & Knight, did not respond to multiple Florida Bulldog phone messages and emails requesting comment.
MOONPAY’S KEY ROLE IN TRUMP MEME COINS
Recently, Soto-Wright’s MoonPay has experienced a business boom as the service provider that processes payments for the buying and selling of the Trump family meme coins, a type of crypto currency that is usually linked to a celebrity.
Last year, during the 47th president’s successful campaign to reclaim the White House, The Trump Organization and its partners Fight Fight Fight LLC. and CIC Digital LLC launched the $TRUMP meme coin. The president’s crypto currency has experienced a surge in volatility since his second term began.
The Trump-affiliated entities control 80 percent of $TRUMP coin under a three-year vesting schedule, yet insiders have earned $324 million in trading fees since January, according to a recent CNBC report. During the same period, about 764,000 wallets — which hold crypto currency investments for small investors — that bought $TRUMP coin have lost money, mostly those with small holdings.
$TRUMP coin was seemingly dead in the water after its initial January surge. But the digital currency experienced a price surge and a peak market cap of $2.7 billion last month after the Trump Organization and its partners announced the top 220 $TRUMP coin holders as of May 12 would be invited to a dinner with the president. Buyers snatched up $140 million in $TRUMP coin, CBS reported.
Naturally, the $TRUMP coin has drawn scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers, who are investigating possible conflicts of interest, foreign influence among top holders, and whether the meme coin business violates ethics rules
A recent Washington Post investigation analyzed $TRUMP coin transactions handled by MoonPay, and determined that typical debit-card buyers of $TRUMP coin spent $100 and have lost $62. And 80 percent of buyers have seen the value of their investment drop substantially.
MoonPay also handled transactions for $MELANIA coin, a meme digital currency tied to First Lady Melania Trump. The Financial Times found that 24 separate wallets bought $2.6 million worth of $MELANIA coin two and a half minutes before it was publicly announced by the first lady in a Jan. 19 Truth Social post.
When Donald Trump’s $TRUMP coin launched, MoonPay was hit with an onslaught of demand, forcing the company to scramble for $160 million in liquidity as buyers rushed in, digital coin trade websites reported. In March, the company snagged a $200-million credit line to prepare for future $TRUMP coin surges.
SOTO-WRIGHT COMES OUT AS SOS AMERICA DONOR
Before jumping on the Trump train, Soto-Wright was riding Suarez’s political coattails, joining tech executives enamored with the mayor’s public relations campaign to make Miami a global hub for crypto currencies and companies like MoonPay seeking to profit from the trading of digital coins.
In 2021, the same year he shot a promotional video with Suarez, Soto-Wright and other top company executives sold $150 million in shares right before a major crash in the crypto market, Fortune.com reported. Shortly after, Soto-Wright dropped $38 million for a Miami Beach waterfront mansion.
Yet, Soto-Wright’s support for Suarez’s SOS America remained a mystery for months after Passionforest LLC donated the half-a-million dollars on Oct. 28, 2022. The LLC happened to share the same name as a nascent Chinese company that sold artificial flowers on Amazon, prompting the Campaign Legal Center to file its FEC complaint on July 24, 2023.
In its complaint, the center noted that publicly available information indicated that Passionforest did not have the financial means to make the contribution without some other person or entity providing the funds. The watchdog group also alleged that the contribution may have come from a foreign national.
Roughly a week after the complaint’s filing, SOS America submitted an amended campaign finance report naming Soto-Wright as the donor behind Passionforest. On Sept. 20, 2023, Passionforest lawyers Brown and Borden sent an eight-page letter to FEC Acting General Counsel Lisa Stevenson asserting that Soto-Wright’s failure to disclose his ownership in the LLC was an oversight and that any connection to the Chinese artificial flower sales company was “based on wild speculation, are wholly without merit, and should also be dismissed.”
Soto-Wright formed Passionforest in 2021 for long-term estate planning and tax purposes — and that the LLC holds funds, investment accounts, valuable works of art and other assets solely owned by Soto-Wright, the letter states.
“The LLC also holds liquid accounts which are regularly used to pay Mr. Soto-Wright’s expenses, such as the upkeep and maintenance of Mr. Soto-Wright’s home,” the Holland & Knight attorneys wrote. “Mr. Soto-Wright had never made a political contribution of any kind. The circumstances of the contribution clearly show that Mr. Soto-Wright used Passionforest to contribute to SOS America purely as a matter of administrative convenience.”
The letter also conceded that Soto-Wright ignored filling out a disclosure form sent to him by SOS America.
FEC STANDS DOWN ON STRAW DONORS
In a Jan. 24 correspondence, then FEC chairwoman Ellen Weintraub notified Brown and Borden that the commission was dismissing the more serious straw donor allegations, which would have required proving Passionforest was used to intentionally mask Soto-Wright’s identity. Weintraub offered to have Soto-Wright enter into a conciliation agreement to avoid a probable cause hearing.
Soto-Wright accepted the agreement, which doesn’t include a fine. Instead, the FEC simply told Passionforest to “cease and desist” from further violations and left the door open for future action-should they ever feel like it.
Letting Soto-Wright slide is part of a broader pattern of the FEC’s regulatory indifference to wealthy donors using shell companies to cloak their political giving. Last month, the FEC dismissed complaints against Stuart Miller, longtime boss at Miami-based homebuilder Lennar, for allegedly making $125,000 in donations to two Republican PACs through a Delaware entity he controlled without disclosing his ownership. Like Soto-Wright, Miller signed a settlement agreement that he won’t make secret donations again and he won’t have to pay fines.
The FEC’s stand-down policy on straw donors allows wealthy individuals and special interests to set up and fund LLCs to make political contributions while shielding their identities, Campaign Legal Center’s Ports said. If they get caught, they will simply claim they forgot or didn’t know they had to disclose the true funder’s name so they can receive a slap on the wrist, she added.
“A properly functioning FEC would enforce the straw-donor prohibition and send a clear message that those who undermine transparency will be held accountable,” Ports said. “However, the FEC is doing the exact opposite, and voters will be left in the dark about who is funding our elections as a result.”
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