More than two hours into former Republican President Donald Trump's launch event for World Liberty Financial on Monday night, the team behind the Trump family's new cryptocurrency project finally made a key announcement. The details were revealed. That is, who will be able to purchase the upcoming tokens that will be released, and how will their shares be purchased? A project will be assigned.
For more than a month, the former president and his family have hyped the effort with vague explanations and promises to accomplish many things at once.
The lofty goals set by project officials on Monday night's XSpace show suggest that World Liberty Financial will become a kind of crypto banking platform, encouraging the general public to lend, borrow and invest in cryptocurrencies. .
The founders said on Monday that there will also be an accompanying token called WLFI.
The capital structure of these tokens is such that 20% of the project's tokens will be allocated to the founding team, including Trump, 17% of the tokens will be set aside for user rewards, and the remaining 63% of the coins will be available. . Founder Zach Folkman said:
There will be no pre-sales or early purchases, Folkman added.
A previously leaked draft of the company's project outline gave the founders a 70% stake, raising concerns that the project was nothing more than a get-rich-quick scheme.
This token will be a Reg D token offering compliant with Regulation D of the Securities and Exchange Commission. This provision allows companies to raise capital without first registering securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as long as certain conditions are met.
These were topics that President Trump addressed in conversation early in the more than two-hour event, as he spoke about the Securities and Exchange Commission's perceived hostility toward the digital currency industry.
Several prominent figures in the industry have challenged SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, arguing that he regulates the industry through enforcement actions rather than rules.
During Trump's 40-minute fireside chat at the beginning of a more than two-hour livestream, he talked about how he was initially “not really interested” in cryptocurrencies.
But that all changed, he said, when sales of a collection of non-fungible tokens trademarked by Trump began to be paid for in cryptocurrencies. “I think the kids opened my eyes more than anything.”
“Cryptocurrency is one of the things we have to do,” President Trump said near the end of his remarks. “Whether we like it or not, we have to do it.”
Monday's events come at an unprecedented moment for President Trump's campaign.
On Sunday afternoon, President Trump and longtime friend and political donor Steve Witkoff were at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, between the fifth and sixth holes of the course when shots were fired. The FBI labeled the incident an apparent assassination attempt against the former president.
Witkoff is a longtime friend of Trump. He is also part of a small group of founders of World Liberty Financial.
Witkoff, seated to Trump's right during a livestream Monday night, explained how he brought together the Trump family and two crypto entrepreneurs to launch the project.
“My son introduced me to two partners, Chase Herro and Zach Folkman. They are very smart people…they are as good as any currency traders I have ever met. And they started talking to me about decentralized finance, and why it makes sense for people, and the forgotten people who don't get credit. ,” Witkoff said.
“When I started to understand it, I said, 'Who better to understand this than the Trump family?' And we started with Eric, Don Jr., and the president and his advisers. We talked about it and said, “Let's pursue it.'' We’ve been doing this for almost nine months,” Witkoff said.
As Witkoff said, the similarities between World Liberty Financial and Trump's other recent ventures are Trump Media & Technology Groupit was inevitable.
In the case of Trump Media, two former contestants from Trump's hit NBC reality show, “The Apprentice,” approached Trump in 2021 with an idea for a new conservative social media platform.
Three and a half years later, Trump Media's publicly traded stock has added billions to Trump's net worth, and Truth Social has become Trump's social platform of choice.
In addition to Trump and Witkoff, World Liberty Financial's founders include Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Barron Trump, and Witkoff's son, Zach Witkoff. It will be done.
A copy of an early internal report, known as a white paper, obtained by CoinDesk lists Barron as the “Lead DeFi Visionary,” Eric and Donald Jr. as the “Web3 Ambassadors,” and Trump Sr. as the “Lead Virtual DeFi Visionary.” “Currency Defender”.
But while the Trump family will receive compensation from the project, the platform itself is “not owned, controlled, operated, or sold” by members of the Trump family.
World Liberty Financial is being led by two people: Witkoff, a real estate investor, and Eric Trump, an executive vice president at the Trump Organization, according to people familiar with the project. Both are new to the cryptocurrency industry.
Until Monday, much of what the public knew about World Liberty came from interviews President Trump's sons gave to the press over the past month, a leaked white paper that served as a kind of crypto project manifesto, and insider sources. It was based on a conversation with.
People familiar with the project said people who wanted to know important details about the platform, including the whitepaper, were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
World Liberty Financial represents the latest step in the evolution of Donald Trump's political and personal relationship with the cryptocurrency industry.
Some prominent figures in the cryptocurrency industry have been close to President Trump during the 2024 campaign, lending cash to or supporting the Republican presidential candidate.
At the same time, Trump became increasingly bullish about cryptocurrencies during his campaign. This culminated in a keynote speech at the year's largest Bitcoin event in July in Nashville, Tennessee.
However, some of these supporters believe that President Trump's own foray into cryptocurrencies could jeopardize his relationship with the sector more broadly, especially if the cryptocurrency launch does not go as planned. He said some people are concerned about the sexual nature of the situation.
The founders gave few details on Monday about the project's future schedule, saying only that new information would be shared on official social media channels and warning fans not to fall for scams.
