Mr. Trump said he would unveil the project on Monday, continuing his support for the crypto industry, a major source of political donations.
Former President Donald J. Trump and his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump plan to launch a cryptocurrency business on Monday.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
Former President Donald J. Trump said Thursday that he is preparing to launch a new cryptocurrency venture, as his presidential campaign aggressively courts the multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency industry ahead of the November election.
In a video posted on X, Mr. Trump said he would introduce crypto platform World Liberty Financial during a livestream at 8 p.m. Monday. “We are embracing the future with crypto and leaving behind the big, slow, outdated banks,” he said.
The announcement was not very detailed and did not explain the extent of his connection to the project. Two of his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., have promoted World Liberty Financial in recent weeks, posting links to a channel on the messaging app Telegram that provides updates on the project.
A message posted Thursday on World Liberty Financial’s Telegram channel said Mr. Trump would appear live from Mar-a-Lago, his country club in Palm Beach, Fla. “Get ready as we unveil our plan to make finance great again,” the message said.
It is unusual for presidential candidates to start new businesses mid-campaign, and Mr. Trump’s business interests have raised concerns about conflicts of interest throughout his political career. He also owns a large stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of the conservative social media platform Truth Social. The company’s stock price has plummeted in recent weeks, wiping billions of dollars off the value of his stake.
World Liberty Financial is Mr. Trump’s latest move to curry favor with the cryptocurrency industry. During his campaign, he promised to end the U.S. government’s crackdown on the industry, which has pushed for tighter regulation of digital currencies. In July, Mr. Trump spoke at the annual Bitcoin conference in Nashville, one of the largest crypto gatherings of the year, promising to make the United States “the cryptocurrency capital of the world.”
The rhetoric appears to be paying off. Several prominent cryptocurrency industry executives, including Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the founders of the Gemini exchange, have donated to Mr. Trump’s campaign efforts. An industry-funded super PAC, Fairshake, has raised more than $150 million to elect pro-crypto candidates to Congress, backing a mix of Democrats and Republicans.
Mr. Trump hasn’t always been a proponent of cryptocurrencies. In 2021, he said that Bitcoin “looks like a scam.” But his views appear to have changed over the course of the campaign. This year, he hosted an event at Mar-a-Lago for people who bought a range of nonfungible tokens, the crypto collectibles known as NFTs, that he has released.
It’s unclear exactly what World Liberty Financial is supposed to accomplish. A copy of the project’s white paper, obtained by the crypto news site CoinDesk, says it will provide a borrowing and lending service, with its own crypto token.
Representatives for World Liberty Financial and the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Trump’s embrace of cryptocurrencies has made him extremely popular with digital currency investors. But his family’s promotion of World Liberty Financial has drawn a mixed reaction in the cryptocurrency world.
“This is really hurting Trump’s election prospects, especially if the system is hacked,” cryptocurrency investor Nic Carter wrote on X this month. “At best, it’s an unnecessary distraction, at worst, it’s a huge embarrassment and source of (additional) legal problems.”
The project has already become a target for hackers and scammers. This month, unauthorized posts appeared on the X accounts of Lara Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter-in-law, and Tiffany Trump, his youngest daughter. The posts directed users to a fake version of the World Liberty Financial website.