More than two hours into former Republican President Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial launch event on Monday night, the team behind the Trump family’s new crypto project finally revealed key details about who will be able to buy the upcoming tokens and how shares in the project will be allocated.
For more than a month, the former president and his family have hyped the effort with vague explanations, promising to accomplish too much at once.
The lofty goals set by project officials at X-Space on Monday night suggest that World Liberty Financial will become a sort of cryptocurrency banking platform where ordinary people will be encouraged to borrow, lend and invest in cryptocurrencies.
The founders said Monday that there will also be an accompanying token called WLFI.
The equity structure of these tokens will see 20% of the project’s tokens allocated to the founding team, which includes Trump, 17% of the tokens will be reserved as rewards for users, and the remaining 63% of the coins will be available for purchase by the general public, founder Zach Folkman said.
Folkman added that there will be no pre-sales or early purchases.
Previously leaked draft internal project outlines had suggested the founders would receive a 70% cut, raising concerns that the project was merely a get-rich-quick scheme.
The token will be a Reg D token offering in compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation D, a regulation that allows companies to raise capital without registering their securities with the commission, as long as certain conditions are met.
These were themes Trump addressed in a conversational format early on in the more than two-hour event, when he spoke about the Securities and Exchange Commission’s alleged hostility toward the digital currency industry.
Several prominent industry figures have taken issue with SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, arguing that he regulates the industry through enforcement actions rather than rules.
During a 40-minute speech at the start of the more than two-hour livestream, President Trump said he initially wasn’t “very interested” in cryptocurrencies.
But that has changed since sales of Trump’s trademarked non-fungible token collection began being paid in cryptocurrency, he said. “I think my kids have opened my eyes more than anything.”
“Cryptocurrency is one of those things we have to do,” Trump said near the end of his speech. “Whether we like it or not, we have to do it.”
Monday’s events come at an unprecedented time for Trump’s campaign.
On Sunday afternoon, Trump and longtime friend and political donor Steve Witkoff were at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Between the 5th and 6th holes on the course Gunshots rang out. The FBI is treating the incident as an assassination attempt on the former president.
Witkoff is a longtime friend of Trump and part of the small group of founders of World Liberty Financial.
Witkoff, who sat to President Trump’s right during a livestream on Monday night, explained how he brought together the Trump family and two crypto entrepreneurs to launch the project.
“My son introduced me to two very smart partners, Chase Herro and Zach Folkman, who are smarter than any currency trader I’ve ever met. They started talking to me about decentralized finance, frictionless finance, and why it makes sense for people, and about forgotten people who don’t have access to credit,” Witkoff said.
“When I started to understand it, I said, ‘Who better understands this than the Trump family?’ And we met initially with Eric, Donald Jr., the president and his advisers. And we said, ‘Let’s pursue it.’ We’ve been at it for almost nine months,” Witkoff said.
As Witkoff explains, the similarities between World Liberty Financial and Trump’s other recent ventures are clear: Trump Media & Technology Groupit was inevitable.
In the case of Trump Media, two former contestants from Trump’s hit NBC reality show, “The Apprentice,” Approaching Trump in 2021 New conservative social media platform idea.
Three and a half years later, Trump Media’s public offering has added billions to Trump’s net worth, and Truth Social has become his social platform of choice.
In addition to Trump and Witkoff, World Liberty Financial’s founders include Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Barron Trump and Witkoff’s son, Zach Witkoff.
A copy of an early internal report known as a white paper and Acquired by CoinDeskThe report named Baron as “chief DeFi visionary,” Eric and Donald Jr. as “Web3 ambassadors,” and Trump as “chief crypto advocate.”
However, while the Trump family will receive compensation from the project, the platform itself is not “owned, controlled, operated or sold” by the Trump family.
Real estate investor Witkoff and Eric Trump Executive Vice President The people at the helm of World Liberty Financial are two Trump Organization insiders, both of whom are new to the cryptocurrency industry, according to a person familiar with the project.
Until Monday, much of what the public knew about World Liberty was based on interviews given to reporters by President Trump’s sons over the past month, a leaked white paper that served as a sort of manifesto for the cryptocurrency project, and conversations with insiders.
Anyone wanting to learn key details about the platform, including the white paper, was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, according to a person familiar with the project.
World Liberty Financial represents the latest step in Donald Trump’s evolving political and personal relationship with the cryptocurrency industry.
Some prominent figures in the cryptocurrency industry have been close to Trump during the 2024 election cycle, lending money and support to the Republican presidential candidate.
At the same time, Trump has been making increasingly bullish talking points about cryptocurrencies on the campaign trail, culminating in a keynote speech at the year’s biggest bitcoin event in Nashville, Tennessee, in July.
But some of these supporters worry that Trump’s personal foray into crypto could erode trust between him and the industry, especially if the launch doesn’t go according to plan.
The founders offered few details on Monday about the project’s upcoming timeline, saying any new information would be shared on their official social media channels and warning fans not to fall for scams.
