The Trump family is involved in so many deals it is difficult to keep track of them all. I have been closely following deals involving Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and the financial company Dominari Holdings which operates out of Trump Tower in Manhattan. The two elder Trump sons and several Trump Org executives own a combined 20% of Dominari Holdings – making any business conducted by Dominari of interest as it links closely to the Trump family and the sitting U.S. president.
A deal recently popped onto my radar that perked my interest because it involves a subsidiary of Dominari Holdings called American Ventures, and an investment in Genius Group Ltd., an AI education company based in Singapore, and Jewel Bancorp in Bermuda. The deal is only a few million dollars – peanuts compared to the billion dollar crypto deals involving the Trump family – but the focus of Jewel Bancorp on “becoming a Permitted Payment Stablecoin Issuer and Digital Asset Service Provider” raises the question of whether the bank could play a larger role in future Trump-linked crypto deals.
Following is an overview of the recent deal and some highlights about some of the people and companies involved. Note that there is no indication of any wrongdoing by any of the people or entities covered here and the information is meant to provide ongoing transparency into deals linked to Trump.
The Trump family and Trump Org executives own approximately 20% of Dominari Holdings Inc., which in turn owns 90% American Ventures
The February 2026 Proxy Statement for Dominari Holdings shows that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump each own 5.96% of Dominari common shares, or just under 12%.
Last year I reported that three other Trump Organization executives – Alan Garten, Lawrence Glick, and Ronald Lieberman – own around 8% of Dominari common stock. The two elder Trump sons and these three Trump Org executives combined own approximately 20% of Dominari Holdings.
Dominari Holdings describes itself as “a holding company that, through its various subsidiaries, is currently engaged in wealth management, investment banking, sales and trading and asset management.”
Per the Dominari Holdings 2025 Annual Report, the company owns 90% of American Ventures Management LLC and 90% of American Ventures IM LLC. American Ventures Management LLC manages American Ventures LLC, the company involved in the Genius and Jewel Bancorp deal (and many others).
The recent Form ADV for American Ventures IM LLC lists Dominari Holdings as a direct owner of 75% or more and the form also lists a securities law firm, Sichenzia Ross Ference Carmel LLP, as an owner of 10-25%. Since the Annual Report says Dominari Holdings owns 90% of American Ventures, it seems likely that Sichenzia Ross Ference Carmel owns 10%.
I found one other investment advisor firm that also lists Sichenzia Ross Ference Carmel LLP in the ownership section – D. Boral IM LLC. D. Boral is the placement agent for the Genius Group offering and is a frequent partner with Dominari Holdings on several deals, including a few involving the Trump family.
Both the American Ventures IM LLC and D. Boral IM LLC ADV forms note on Schedule B that Sichenzia Ross Ference Carmel LLP acquired ownership ten years ago in April 2016. I don’t believe this ownership stake has been reported elsewhere and it is interesting that the firm that provides legal counsel is also a minority owner in these two advisory firms.
Dominari subsidiary American Ventures is the lead investor in an $8 million offering of Genius Group ordinary shares
On April 15th, Genius Group announced the pricing of an $8 million registered direct offering with American Ventures as the lead investor. Of the proceeds, $5.5 million is intended to fund a promissory note that is convertible into 9.9% ownership of Jewel Financial Limited which owns Jewel Bancorp in Bermuda.
Below are highlights from the press release:
- Genius Group Limited (NYSE American: GNS) (“Genius Group” or the “Company”), a leading AI-powered education group, today announced it has entered into a securities purchase agreement with certain investors, including American Ventures LLC as lead investor for the purchase and sale of 21,621,621 million shares of ordinary shares (or pre-funded warrants in lieu thereof) in a registered direct offering (the “Offering”) at a public offering price of $0.37 per share.
- D. Boral Capital LLC is acting as the exclusive placement agent for the Offering.
- The Company intends to use $5.5 million of the net proceeds from the Offering to fund the acquisition of a Senior Secured Convertible Promissory Note that is immediately convertible into 9.9% of the equity of Jewel Financial Limited, the sole shareholder of Jewel Bancorp Limited, Bermuda’s only dual-licensed digital bank, progressing its previously announced GENIUS Act plans of becoming a Permitted Payment Stablecoin Issuer and Digital Asset Service Provider.
According to the Note Purchase Agreement between Genius Group Ltd (Purchaser) and Jewel Investments LLC (Seller), Jewel Investments is a Delaware company that, following a completed recapitalization will own 58.3% of the equity interests of Jewel Financial Limited which owns 100% of Jewel Bancorp Limited.
The placement agent in the offering is D. Boral Capital, which I wrote about here. Dominari and D. Boral have worked together on several deals, including the deal to launch New America Acquisition I Corp, with investors Don Jr. and Eric Trump. D. Boral Capital, previously called EF Hutton and Benchmark Investments, also launched several SPACs with ARC Group based in Shanghai. ARC Group was an early financial advisor to DWAC, the firm that merged with Trump Media & Technology Group.
In January Bloomberg published a story on U.S. regulators scrutinizing suspected pump-and-dump schemes involving foreign companies. A Bloomberg news analysis focused on companies in Asia that were subject to potential stock manipulation and the underwriters involved with the deals (note that none were accused of any wrongdoing). Some of the most prolific underwriters included D. Boral, Dominari and Revere Securities.
Genius Group Limited
Genius Group Limited, headquartered in Singapore and led by chief executive Roger James Hamilton, is focused on AI education, with various subsidiaries including edtech platform GeniusU which was available to 4 million students, Genius Academy and Genius Resorts. The business was founded by Roger Hamilton in 2002 and was previously named GeniusU Pte Ltd until 2019. Genius Group Limited did an Initial Public Offering in 2022 on the New York Stock Exchange.
In the past few years Genius Group has been involved with some lawsuits related to short sellers and a failed merger.
In 2023 Genius Group appointed former Deputy Director of the F.B.I. Timothy Murphy to lead an ‘Illegal Trading Task Force’ as part of an action plan to address alleged illegal short selling of its stock (Murphy is no longer a director). In 2025 Genius Group filed a lawsuit against several short selling companies.
In 2024 Genius Group planned to merge with LZG International (LZGI), doing business as FatBrain AI and appointed FatBrain shareholder and Chairman Michael Moe as the Genius Group Board Chairman. However, the deal did not happen and in 2025 Genius Group filed a RICO lawsuit against Michael Moe and FatBrain AI co-founder Peter Ritz seeking $450 million in damages.
Last week a Genius Group press release announced that they had received a final award from an ICC Arbitration proceeding with LZG International and won the return of 7.4 million shares and an $8 million cash payment.
The 2025 Annual Report for Genius Group Limited has a section on the report of the independent registered public accounting firm on ‘Material Uncertainty Related to Going Concern’ that highlights net losses and negative cash flows:
The accompanying consolidated financial statements have been prepared assuming that the Group will continue as a going concern. As more fully described in Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements. The Group incurred net loss of US $55.4 million and generated negative cash flows from operations of US $10.6 million during the year ended December 31, 2025. As of December 31, 2025, the Group has net current liabilities position of US $3.76 million and accumulated losses of US $137.9 million. These conditions raise substantial doubt about the Group’s ability to continue as a going concern. Management’s plans in regard to these matters are also described in Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements. The consolidated financial statements do not include any adjustments that might result from the outcome of this uncertainty. Our opinion is not modified with respect to this matter.
It is not clear how Dominari through its affiliate American Ventures came to invest in Genius Group, or why an AI education company with tens of millions of dollars in losses is investing in a digital asset bank in Bermuda.
Jewel Investments and Jewel Bancorp in Bermuda
A 2022 story in The Royal Gazette described how Bermuda’s first digital bank was set to open that year with the backing of the former premier Sir John Swan and his family. Chance Barnett, the chief executive of Jewel Bank, said the bank could “grow into multibillion-dollar operation fairly quickly.”
Chance (Chancellor) Barnett previously launched a U.S. company called Crowdfunder and per his LinkedIn profile was an advisor to Haas Portman Family Office and Orchid Labs, and co-founded CoinCircle. Barnett said that he was introduced to Bermuda four years earlier by Stan Stalnaker who had launched the digital currency Ven.
The Swan family were investors in Jewel Bank and Alison Swan was on the board. Alison Swan is also an advisor at Mpayz run by Michael Dershem.
In 2022 Jewel Bank was approved by the Bermuda Monetary Authority for its bank license and digital asset business license. Jewel Bank announced it was issuing a fully backed stablecoin called Jewel USD in partnership with Polygon.
A 2023 article noted that the launch of Jewel Bank, by Chance Barnett and chief executive Nick Lepetsos, was behind schedule. The article provided a bit more detail on the structure, including that Jewel Holdings Bermuda Ltd had incorporated in 2018, and owned all the shares in Jewel Financial, which owned all the shares in Jewel Bancorp. It had five directors, including Ms. Swan and Robert Cooney in Bermuda.
A 2024 article reported that Jewel Bank had still not received all approvals required to fully launch.
Investors in Jewel Bank
While trying to understand Jewel Bank’s past and current ownership structure I found more riddles than answers.
In addition to the Swan family, according to Pitchbook, Cypherhunter and other sources, investors in Jewel Bank in 2022 included Gaingels, Gate Ventures (Gate.io), Kevin Moore, Kube VC, Palm Drive Capital, Libra Capital Ventures, Cadenza Capital Management and Quiet Capital.
As I was researching Jewel, I noticed that the April 2026 Note Purchase Agreement for Genius Group lists a New York City address for the seller Jewel Investments. The address in the agreement is the same street and floor number as the similarly named Jewel Investments run by James Schainuck, which has a fund called Jewel GP, LLC with $24 million in assets under management. However, it is not clear beyond the shared address, how or if Schainuck’s firm is connected to Bermuda’s Jewel Bank.
The 2026 Note Purchase Agreement lists Jacob Babins as the Manager of Jewel Investments. There is a similarly named Jacob Babins listed as an agent for an inactive Florida company ScoJac Holdings, LLC along with Scott Herman. One of the eleven investors in Thumzup Media Corporation along with Donald Trump Jr. (which I wrote about here) is Scojac, LLC (also misspelled as Scojack LLC), managed by Scott Herman. Herman is also an investor in Digihost Technology and ASP Isotopes, other companies in the Trump/Dominari network that I have written about before.
Another odd item I found was in the Securities Purchase Agreement Conflicts of Interest section, which says:
Such Purchaser understands and acknowledges that the Majority Interest will be held by American Ventures LLC, Series XLIX GNS, an entity managed by American Ventures Management LLC. Such Purchaser understands and acknowledges that the counterparty in the Proposed Acquisition, Jewel Investments, LLC, is majority owned by American Ventures LLC, Series XI Jewel Digital, which in turn is also managed by American Ventures Management LLC.
The section above stating “Jewel Investments, LLC, is majority owned by American Ventures LLC, Series XI Jewel Digital” is a bit perplexing. I found this October 2025 filing showing an offering for ‘American Ventures LLC, Series XI Jewel Digital’ for a total of $30,000 of which $29,484 was raised from 5 investors.
It is not clear if this small deal – in which Dominari’s American Ventures has an agreement to invest in Singapore-based Genius Group Ltd, and offering proceeds will partly fund a promissory note that is convertible to 9.9% ownership of Bermuda’s Jewel Bank – will become significant in any way. But it seems worth having on the radar, since in Trump-world small events sometimes emerge later as parts of larger stories. If anyone has any additional information on this topic it can be shared through the Contact section.