Around sixteen minutes into Republican former President Donald Trump’s “state of crypto” address on X, cryptocurrencies got their first mention.
For over a month, the former president and his family have been pumping up a secretive family crypto project, promising that it will do many things at once.
Early descriptions suggest that “World Liberty Financial” will be a sort of crypto banking platform, with 70% of the equity held by a small group of Trump family members and insiders. Users would be able to borrow and lend crypto on the platform, and the original investors would be paid via fees.
Now, with 50 days until the presidential election, the Republican nominee says he would be launching World Liberty Financial in a Twitter Spaces event that began shortly after 8 p.m. ET Monday from his Palm Beach resort and home, Mar-a-Lago.
The GOP presidential nominee began the conversation around crypto by talking about how much his three sons know about the industry and how “they’ve shown great judgment.”
“Barron knows so much about this,” Trump said of his youngest son. “He talks about his wallet. He’s got four wallets or something, but he knows this stuff.”
From there, Trump covered familiar ground, talking about the perceived hostility of the Securities and Exchange Commission towards the digital currency industry. Several high profile figures in the industry take issue with SEC Chair Gary Gensler, claiming that he is regulating the industry through enforcement actions, rather than with rules.
Early in the event, Trump did an “interview” with Farokh Sarmad, a crypto enthusiast and investor who has a media company.
Over the course of Trump’s 40-minute fireside chat, he talked about how he “wasn’t overly interested” in crypto initially. But that changed, he said, when sales of his Trump trademarked nonfungible token collections were paid for with crypto. “I think my children opened my eyes more than anything else.”
CNBC sent detailed questions to a World Liberty Financial press email address on Monday. A short time later, CNBC received an email reply sent from an anonymous gmail account, which did not answer CNBC’s questions or list a name for the sender.
Monday’s event came at an unprecedented moment for Trump’s presidential campaign.
On Sunday afternoon at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump and his longtime friend and political donor, Steve Witkoff, were between the fifth and sixth holes on the course when gunshots were fired. The FBI has characterized the incident as an apparent assassination attempt on the former president.
Witkoff is a longtime friend of Trump’s. He’s also part of the small group of World Liberty Financial founders, according to an internal report on the project obtained by CoinDesk.
Witkoff was seated to Trump’s right during Monday night’s spaces, and described how he brought the Trump family together two crypto entrepreneurs.
“My son introduced me to two partners, Chase Herro and Zak Folkman, who are exceptionally bright people …These guys are as smart as any currency traders I’ve ever met. And they began talking to me about decentralized finance, which means frictionless finance, and why it made sense for people and about the forgotten, who can’t get credit out there,” he said.
“As I began to understand that, I said, ‘Who would understand this better than this than the Trump family?’ And we had a meeting initially with Eric, Don Jr, and the president and his counsel. And we said, Let’s go pursue it. We’ve been on it for close to nine months,” said Witkoff.
Along with Trump, Witkoff is one of at least a half dozen members of the project’s “leadership team.” This means he will also reportedly share in the 70% stake in the crypto bank that will be issued to its founding members at the launch.
Seventy percent is an unusually large equity share for the founders of a crypto platform to retain, according to several industry experts including crypto-specific venture capitalists. The typical founders stake is closer to 20%.
As Witkoff spoke, the parallels with Trump’s other venture, Trump Media Technology Group, were unavoidable.
In that case, two former cast members on Trump’s NBC hit “The Apprentice” approached Trump in 2021 with an idea for a new, conservative social network. Three years later, TMTG’s stock has boosted Trump’s net worth by billions of dollars, and Truth Social is his platform of choice.
Alongside Trump and Witkoff, founders include Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Barron Trump, as well as Witkoff’s son, Zach Witkoff, according to a person briefed by a member of the group’s founding team.
A copy of the internal report, known as a white paper and obtained by CoinDesk, lists Barron as “Chief DeFi Visionary,” Eric and Donald Jr. as “Web3 Ambassadors,” and Trump Sr. as “Chief Crypto Advocate.”
But while the Trumps will receive compensation from the project, Bloomberg reports that the platform itself is “not owned, managed, operated or sold” by members of the Trump family.
The anonymous gmail account that replied to CNBC claimed the project had not yet produced a white paper, raising additional questions about whether it was prepared to launch on Monday.
Witkoff, a real estate investor, and Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, are the two people calling the shots at World Liberty Financial, according to a person familiar with the project. Both are new to the crypto industry.
CNBC reached out to Eric Trump and Witkoff to ask about their leadership roles within World Liberty, and didn’t immediately receive a reply.
According to a person familiar with the project, Witkoff has shown little interest in learning the mechanics of how the platform works.
CNBC reached out to World Liberty Financial, the Trump campaign, and the Trump Organization to ask for details related to the project and did not immediately hear back to this request.
Much of what the public knows of World Liberty is based on interviews Trump’s sons have given to the press over the past month, as well as the leaked white paper that serves as a sort of crypto project manifesto, and conversations with people familiar with the project.
Anyone who wants material details of the platform, including the white paper, is being asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, according to a person familiar with the project
Some visible members of the industry newly cozied up to Trump in 2024, lending their cash and endorsement to the Republican presidential nominee, as he adopted increasingly bullish talking points on the campaign trail, which culminated in the GOP pick delivering a keynote address at the biggest bitcoin event of the year in Nashville in July.
Some of those supporters however, say they are concerned that this foray into crypto may jeopardize Trump’s rapport with the sector more broadly if the launch doesn’t go as planned.
A person familiar with the project says that Donald Trump, Sr. isn’t that involved in the platform thus far.
