The Trump Family’s Foray into Cryptocurrency

It’s no secret that the world of cryptocurrency has captivated many, and it seems that the Trump family is no exception. This fascination comes at a time when the former President Donald Trump is deeply engaged in a significant national campaign, with less than two months until the election. Recently, CoinDesk reporters uncovered a confidential “white paper” detailing the family’s ambitious plan to position the United States as the “crypto capital of the planet.”

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The user interfaces for Dough Finance, left, bear a striking resemblance to recently deleted code from World Liberty Financial (GitHub).

Defi Don

In recent weeks, we reported on the Trump family’s increasingly close ties to the blockchain world. Eric Trump expressed his enthusiasm by tweeting that he had “fallen in love with crypto,” while his father’s own words have sparked a wave of largely worthless and duplicate memecoins. On August 23, Donald Trump promoted an upcoming decentralized finance (DeFi) platform titled “The DeFiant Ones” to his 7.5 million followers on Truth Social. However, just last week, he announced that this initiative would be renamed “World Liberty Financial“, which is part of a larger strategy to transform the U.S. into “the crypto capital of the planet.”

Although details have been sparse, several of my colleagues at CoinDesk have diligently sifted through public resources and documents to shed more light on the Trump family’s crypto ambitions. According to reporting by Danny Nelson, metadata from the website worldlibertyfinancial.com claims that it will be “the only crypto DeFi platform supported by Donald J. Trump,” connecting users to “decentralized finance’s best tools for secure, high-yield crypto investments.” The site encourages users to “join the financial revolution today!” Additionally, a trademark application for World Liberty Financial filed in mid-July hints at its association with DeFi, with lawyer Alex Golubitsky confirming to CoinDesk that the trademark is indeed linked to Trump’s crypto ventures.

On Tuesday, CoinDesk’s Sam Kessler, along with Nelson and Cheyenne Ligon, reported on a secret white paper for World Liberty Financial that has been quietly circulated among the president’s inner circle. The document outlines a borrowing and lending service that bears a striking resemblance to Dough Finance, a blockchain application that was recently hacked and developed by four individuals associated with World Liberty Financial. Among the project’s team are all three of Trump’s sons, including 18-year-old Barron, who is designated as the project’s ‘DeFi visionary.’ In this venture, Donald Trump himself serves as the figurehead, holding the title of “Chief Crypto Advocate,” while Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are designated as “Web3 Ambassadors.”

Adding to the intrigue, the project is reportedly supported by a cast of characters whose backgrounds might raise eyebrows among seasoned campaign veterans. Among them is Zachary Folkman, who is listed in the white paper as World Liberty Financial’s head of operations, and Chase Herro, its data and strategies lead. A limited liability corporation for World Liberty Financial is registered to Folkman, who, alongside Herro, co-created Subify, a platform that promotes itself as a censorship-free competitor to Patreon and OnlyFans—platforms that enable customers to pay content creators, with OnlyFans leaning towards explicit content. Folkman has previously registered a company named Date Hotter Girls LLC and has even hosted YouTube seminars on dating advice. Herro has been featured as a guest on popular podcasts, including YouTuber Logan Paul’s “Impaulsive,” where he has openly discussed his prior prison time for drug-related offenses and how he achieved success as a “self-made businessman.”

Despite multiple requests for comments, neither Herro, Folkman, World Liberty Financial, nor the Trump campaign has responded. In an interesting twist, shortly after CoinDesk’s report on the project’s white paper, social media accounts belonging to at least two Trump family members were hacked in an apparent attempt to promote a crypto scam.

On Wednesday, the team revealed that the current strategy allocates approximately 70% of the new WLFI tokens to project insiders, a notably high percentage compared to the typical 5%-20% seen in other similar initiatives.

Elsewhere: Mt. Gox and Its Legacy

Mark Karpeles (left), former CEO of Mt. Gox, speaking with CoinDesk’s Sam Reynolds at Korea Blockchain Week on September 4. (Parikshit Mishra/CoinDesk)

As Mt. Gox concludes its bankruptcy redemption payments, it marks the end of a nearly decade-long saga, closing the chapter on what many consider the largest hack in the history of cryptocurrency. Once a figure of contempt in the crypto community, Mark Karpeles, the former CEO of the ill-fated exchange, faced a decade-long prison sentence in Japan. Yet, he has now joined an exclusive group of the 1% who have successfully challenged the legal system in Japan—a rarity in a country with a 99% conviction rate that often prioritizes coerced confessions over contesting cases. With this tumultuous period behind him, Karpeles is embarking on a new venture: launching a crypto exchange named EllipX, which aims to incorporate modern exchange practices and lessons learned from the Mt. Gox incident, along with ongoing efforts on a crypto ratings agency called Ungox.

“I can confidently state that the Mt. Gox hack would not have occurred if we had even a fraction of the tools available today,” Karpeles stated in an interview with CoinDesk’s Sam Reynolds at Korea Blockchain Week in Seoul. Read more about this story from CoinDesk’s Sam Reynolds.

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Market Overview

• CoinDesk 20 Index: The index of major digital assets dropped 14% last month, with nearly all members experiencing losses. This decline is particularly stark when compared to the performance of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. stocks and gold.
• Aptos, associated with the “Move” programming language from the now-defunct Facebook/Meta blockchain projects, was the sole gainer last month, with a 5.3% increase in its APT token’s price.
• Bitcoin fell by 7.7%, while Ethereum’s ETH suffered a significant decline of 21%, marking its worst performance in two years.

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