Trump’s ambitions for US to be ‘crypto capital of the planet’ are concerning allies

Months after Donald Trump and his eldest sons were found liable for civil fraud associated with a family business, the Trumps have sparked new concerns with a growing family venture — cryptocurrency.

The Republican presidential candidate has embraced a newfound love for cryptocurrency — he owns more than $1 million in digital currency — and sons, Don Jr and Eric, are considering forming a crypto startup called World Liberty Financial. But that plan has concerned Trump’s allies in the crypto sphere.

The X accounts of Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump, and Lara Trump, Eric’s wife who co-chairs the Republican National Committee, were hacked earlier this week, with posts directing users to fake links for the project, according to World Liberty Financial.

World Liberty Financial then warned X users to avoid clicking on links shared from those profiles. The two women are not involved in the crypto project.

Not long after the incident, Nic Carter, a Trump supporter and general partner at cryptoasset firm Castle Island Ventures, advised the startup to stop in its tracks.

“Is there something that we, as crypto twitter, can collectively do to stop the launch of world liberty coin? I think it genuinely damages trump’s electoral prospects, especially if it gets hacked…it’s also an obvious target for the SEC,” Carter wrote on X.

“At best it’s an unnecessary distraction, at worst it’s a huge embarrassment and source of (additional) legal trouble.”

Carter then bluntly told Politico that the startup was a “huge mistake”.

“It looks like Trump’s inner circle is just cashing in on his recent embrace of crypto in a kind of naive way, and frankly it looks like they’re burning a lot of the good will that’s been built with the industry so far,” he said.

The hacks took place days after the Trump family started promoting the new project. The former president posted a video to his X account, stating his ambition for the US to become “the crypto capital of the planet.” Despite joining X just two months ago, World Liberty Financial has more than 50,000 followers so far.

But some experts warned that such significant promotion pre-launch could cause issues down the line.

Austin Campbell, blockchain expert and adjunct professor at NYU Stern School of Business, also shared concerns about World Liberty Financial’s rollout.

“It’s a very typical playbook of smaller operators or more amateur operations in the crypto space to try to generate a lot of hype before revealing the details,” he told Politico. “That makes them susceptible to all sorts of nonsense.”

Another source in the cryptocurrency insider, who remained anonymous, told Politico about having “a laundry list of concerns” about how the project could imperil the industry’s reputation.

Trump has made a U-turn on cryptocurrency in recent years. After leaving the White House in 2021, Trump called Bitcoin a “scam.” He explained: “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar… I want the dollar to be the currency of the world.”

But in recent months, the former president has become a staunch supporter. In May, his campaign announced it would accept cryptocurrency contributions as part of a wider effort to build a so-called “crypto army” before the November election.

Although the official plans about the startup haven’t been announced, CoinDesk obtained portions of a white paper for the project.

The document called World Liberty Financial “a borrowing and lending service strikingly similar to Dough Finance”, a blockchain app that was hacked for $2m in July.

Four people who built Dough Finance are named as World Liberty Financial team members, and all of Trump’s sons — even NYU college freshman Barron, who the white paper calls “DeFi visionary”, CoinDesk reported.

The startup will also offer non-transferable governance token. Although World touted itself as a “decentralized” platform, the white paper revealed that 70 percent of its tokens will be “held by the founders, team, and service providers.”

Despite the recent hacks, a World Liberty Financial spokesperson told Politico: “We take security very seriously and put it first and foremost, above anything.”