After explaining that what we're hearing tonight is not financial or legal advice, there was a 40-minute interview with former President Donald Trump — covering the alleged attempt on his life on a Florida golf course, the border, the “evil forces” plotting against him, and his granddaughter's foreign language skills — followed by conversations with Trump's sons and staff. Then the “X Space,” dedicated to the announcement of Trump's “crypto platform,” more or less got down to business.
The goal of World Liberty Financial, Trump's new decentralized finance project, is to drive “mass adoption of stablecoins and decentralized finance,” according to a statement posted on the company's X account earlier this month. But during the lengthy “announcement” on Monday evening, neither Trump nor any of his business partners explained how exactly that would work.
Finally, more than two hours into the stream, Corey Caplan — the co-founder of decentralized lending platform Dolomite who works as an adviser to Trump's project — said World Liberty Financial will “sell and otherwise distribute governance tokens called WLFI.” The token sale will be limited to “certain persons who would be eligible to participate in transactions exempt from registration under U.S. securities laws,” meaning only accredited investors under Regulation D and Regulation S can buy the token. Three people with knowledge of the project told the New York Times that World Liberty Financial was touted as a credit and loan platform.
Previously, a group of Trump's relatives and associates had described World Liberty Financial as a way to help the “large, accessible group of people who either no longer have a bank account … or simply don't have a bank to turn to and a bank that listens to them.”
The details came to light just over an hour and a half after the announcement, when two of Trump's other business associates – Chase Herro and Zak Folkman – revealed some details of the “crypto platform” that Trump and his sons have been touting for over a month. World Liberty Financial will “get as many people on board as possible through simple products that they can actually start earning returns on their investments,” said Folkman, the co-founder of Dough Finance, a crypto platform that was hacked earlier this year.
“I think crypto is one of those things we have to do whether we like it or not.”
Trump first announced the project in August. “For too long, the average American has been squeezed by big banks and financial elites. It's time we take a stand together. #BeDefiant,” he posted on Truth Social. Aside from a link to a Telegram channel, the post didn't provide any further details about the platform or what it entails. The uncertainty surrounding the announcement has allowed opportunists – and hackers – to take advantage of Trump's fans. Earlier this month, hackers hacked into the X accounts of Tiffany Trump and Lara Trump and posted links to a fake World Liberty Financial website announcing the launch of the project.
Donald Trump Jr. and real estate developer and landlord Steve Witkoff, both of whom also have stakes in World Liberty Financial, described the project as a way to help underserved, unbanked communities.
“If you want to borrow money today, you almost have to be an anointed one. You have to be a member of the privileged class,” says Witkoff, who bought the Fontainebleau Resort Las Vegas for $600 million in 2017.
Don Jr., who described himself as “still new” to the crypto space, said decentralized finance can help people who are excluded from traditional financial markets. The announcement played on a common fear in the crypto community: debanking, potentially as punishment for political disagreement.
“There was a time when we Trumps could have picked up the phone and called the CEO of any bank,” Don Jr. said. “We were people who would have been among the elite of the world at the time, and we would just get completely canceled.” It's possible that this has more to do with Trump's past than his political views, because he lied about his wealth or ran a fraudulent for-profit college.
Despite claims that World Liberty Financial will “put the power of finance back in the hands of the people,” initial reports suggested that its founding token would be distributed primarily to those involved in the project. A white paper seen by CoinDesk states that 70 percent of WLFI would be held by the founding members, team and service providers.
However, during the stream, Caplan criticized “fake news media” reports on the distribution of the tokens, saying that about 63 percent of the tokens would be sold publicly while 20 percent would be “reserved for team compensation.”
World Liberty Financial appears to be part of a broader Trump campaign targeting the crypto community. Trump headlined this year's Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where he said he would never sell the U.S.'s bitcoin holdings but stopped short of pledging to create a strategic bitcoin reserve. He has also released four NFT collections that earned him at least $7.2 million, according to August financial disclosure forms.
It's obvious that Trump, who disappeared from the stream after the first 40 minutes, is the face of a product he knows almost nothing about. Aside from some vague comments about the “very hostile environment” the Securities and Exchange Commission has created for the crypto community, he had little to say about cryptocurrencies – and an admission that politicians know that embracing cryptocurrencies could help them win voters.
“You're going to be happy and you're going to love your cryptocurrency, and as long as you have cryptocurrency, you're happy,” Trump said at the start of the stream. “I think cryptocurrency is one of those things we have to do whether we like it or not.”