Trump family earns $500M from World Liberty crypto venture
The Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, launched its namesake digital tokens for sale on Monday, increasing Donald Trump’s family fortune by approximately $5 billion in paper value. The token, known as $WLFI, decreased in value on Monday during its first day of trading.
The World Liberty tokens were offered to investors after the Trump family and its business partners established the venture last year, a decentralized finance platform that also issued a stablecoin, a cryptocurrency designed to maintain a fixed price by linking its value to a specific asset.
Investors in the tokens voted in July to allow them to be traded, setting the stage for their buying and selling and potentially increasing the value of the president’s holdings.
World Liberty stated that early investors can sell up to 20% of their holdings. The tokens were initially traded above $0.30 during their Monday debut but later dropped to $0.20. According to data from CoinMarketCap, approximately $1 billion worth of the tokens exchanged hands within the first hour of trading.
This gave the token a total market capitalization of just below $7 billion, making WLFI the 31st largest crypto token in circulation, according to data from the trading analysis firm CoinGecko.
Some of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance, OKX, and Bybit, are offering $WLFI tokens on their platforms.
Since World Liberty’s launch last year, the Trump family has made about $500 million from the project, according to Reuters calculations based on the company’s terms and conditions, transactions tracked by crypto analysis firms, and publicly disclosed deals.
Ownership of about a quarter of World Liberty’s tokens has added approximately $5 billion to the Trump family fortune, according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump himself, referred to as a "co-founder emeritus" on the company’s website, owns an unspecified amount of $WLFI, but he is prohibited from selling them, as are other team members, including his sons, according to World Liberty. Trump has used the Oval Office to expand crypto-friendly regulations in the US.
The tokens were not available for trading at their initial sale. Instead, they granted holders the right to vote on certain changes to the business, such as its underlying code. Early investors have stated that the main appeal of $WLFI was the connection to Trump and their expectations that the tokens would increase in value due to his support.
Allowing the tokens to be tradable lets investors determine their price, enabling speculation, earning trading fees for exchanges that list them, and likely attracting interest from a broader range of crypto investors than when they were only privately available.
World Liberty and Trump’s other crypto ventures have faced criticism from Democratic lawmakers and government ethics experts who say the Trump family’s involvement in cryptocurrency businesses, while the president reshapes the regulatory framework for digital currencies, poses significant conflicts of interest.
The White House has repeatedly stated that Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children and that there are no conflicts of interest.
World Affairs Correspondent
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
