It’s unusual for presidential candidates to start new businesses in the middle of a campaign, and Trump’s business interests have raised concerns about conflicts of interest throughout his political career.
He also owns a large stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of conservative social media platform Truth Social. The company’s stock has plunged in recent weeks, reducing the value of his stake by billions of dollars.
World Liberty Financial is Trump’s latest effort to ingratiate himself with the crypto industry. On the campaign trail, he has vowed to end a crackdown on the industry by the US Government, which has pushed for stricter regulations on digital currencies. In July, Trump spoke at the annual Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the largest crypto gatherings of the year, promising to make the US “the crypto capital of the planet”.
The pitch appears to be working. Several prominent crypto executives, including Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of the Gemini exchange, have donated to Trump’s election effort. A super Pac funded by the industry, Fairshake, has raised more than US$150 million ($243m) to elect pro-crypto candidates in congressional races, supporting a mix of Democrats and Republicans.
Trump was not always a crypto booster. In 2021, he said Bitcoin “seems like a scam”. But his views appear to have shifted during the campaign. This year, he hosted an event at Mar-a-Lago for people who bought a line of non-fungible tokens, the crypto collectables known as NFTs, which he released.
It’s unclear exactly what World Liberty Financial is designed to accomplish. A copy of the project’s white paper, obtained by crypto news website CoinDesk, said it would provide a borrowing and lending service, with its own crypto token.
Representatives for World Liberty Financial and the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump’s embrace of crypto has made him hugely popular among digital currency investors. But his family’s promotion of World Liberty Financial has drawn a mixed reaction in the crypto world.
“It genuinely damages Trump’s electoral prospects, especially if it gets hacked,” crypto venture investor Nic Carter wrote on X this month. “At best it’s an unnecessary distraction, at worst it’s a huge embarrassment and source of (additional) legal trouble.”
The project has already become a target for hackers and scammers. This month, unauthorised posts appeared on the X accounts of Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law, and Tiffany Trump, his younger daughter. The posts directed viewers to a fake version of World Liberty Financial’s website
“This is a scam!!!” Eric Trump wrote on X. “@LaraLeaTrump and @TiffanyATrump’s Twitter profiles have been compromised!!”
Written by: David Yaffe-Bellany
Photographs by: Jim Vondruska
© 2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
