Trump, Sons launche new cryptocurrency platform

Former US President Donald Trump, along with his sons and various entrepreneurs, introduced a new cryptocurrency platform late Monday, but provided few details.

During a two-hour online presentation, the Trump family crypto initiative was revealed to offer digital “tokens” that grant holders a say in platform decisions. However, specifics about the platform’s operations were not disclosed.

The launch proceeded as scheduled despite an alleged assassination attempt against Trump at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday.

World Liberty Financial intends to offer services based on so-called decentralized finance, a mechanism that eliminates the need for an intermediary such as a bank to carry out transactions with a third party, the politics-laced discussion indicated.

Decentralized finance relies on blockchain technology, which maintains a theoretically open yet secure ledger of transactions.

World Liberty Financial will enable users to lend or borrow cryptocurrencies to or from one another, a service already offered by many platforms, one of the best-known of which is Aave.

The former president’s son Donald Trump Jr. touted this as “the start of a financial revolution,” during a session streamed on X, formerly Twitter.

Zachary Folkman and Chase Herro, the linchpins of the project and established cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, said the platform would primarily use “stablecoins”, which are backed by a traditional currency, most often the dollar.

As a result, they are free from the sometimes brutal fluctuations experienced by digital currencies untethered to real-world money.

World Liberty Financial wants to attract the masses to cryptocurrencies, creating a platform easily accessible to people, Folkman said.

Project leaders said they would sell tokens that give owners the right to take part in the governance of the platform, with 63 per cent of them offered to the public, 20 per cent going to the founding team and the rest set aside as rewards for users.

No timetable for the project was disclose

During his presidency, Trump dismissed cryptocurrencies as a scam but has since shifted his stance, presenting himself as a “pro-bitcoin president” in the lead-up to the November election.

This marks a notable contrast with the Biden administration, which is seen as advocating for more regulation in the cryptocurrency sector.