More than two hours after Republican ex-President Donald Trump's World Liberty Financial launch event began on Monday evening, the team behind the Trump family's new crypto project finally revealed an important detail: who can buy the planned tokens and how will the project's shares be allocated?
For over a month, the former president and his family have been stoking the project with vague descriptions and promises that many things would happen simultaneously.
The lofty goals set by project participants on Monday evening at X-Space suggest that World Liberty Financial will be a type of crypto banking platform where the general public will be encouraged to borrow, lend and invest in cryptocurrencies.
There will also be a companion token called WLFI, the founders said on Monday.
The equity structure for these tokens, according to founder Zak Folkman, will see 20% of the project's tokens allocated to the founding team, which includes the Trumps, 17% of the tokens reserved for user rewards, and the remaining 63% of the coins made available to the public for purchase.
There will be no presale or early buy-in, Folkman added.
A previously leaked draft of an internal project plan had stated that the founders' share was 70%, raising fears that the project might simply be a get-rich-quick scheme.
The token is a Reg D token offering that follows the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Regulation D – a provision that allows a company to raise capital without first registering its securities with the commission, provided certain conditions are met.
Trump addressed these issues early in the two-hour event in a conversation format in which he spoke about the Securities and Exchange Commission's perceived hostility toward the digital currency industry.
Several high-ranking industry figures have criticized SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, claiming he regulates the industry through coercive measures rather than regulations.
During Trump's 40-minute fireside chat at the beginning of the more than two-hour livestream, he talked about how he was initially “not overly interested in cryptocurrencies.”
But that changed, he says, when the sale of his Trump-branded nonfungible token collections was paid for with cryptocurrencies. “I think my children opened my eyes more than anything else.”
“Crypto is one of the things we have to do,” Trump said toward the end of his remarks. “Whether we like it or not, we have to do it.”
Monday's event came at an unprecedented time for Trump's presidential campaign.
On Sunday afternoon, Trump and longtime friend and political donor Steve Witkoff were between the fifth and sixth holes of the golf course when shots were fired. The FBI described the incident as an apparent assassination attempt on the former president.
Witkoff is a long-time friend of Trump. He is also part of the small group of founders of World Liberty Financial.
Sitting to Trump's right during Monday night's livestream, Witkoff described how he brought the Trump family together with two crypto entrepreneurs to launch the project.
“My son introduced me to two partners, Chase Herro and Zak Folkman, who are exceptionally smart people… These guys are as smart as any currency trader I've ever met. And they started talking to me about decentralized finance, frictionless finance, and why that makes sense for people. And the forgotten people who can't get credit out there,” Witkoff said.
“When I started to understand this, I said, 'Who would understand this better than the Trump family?' And we had a meeting with Eric, Don Jr. and the president and his adviser. And we said, 'Let's look into this.' We've been at this for almost nine months now,” Witkoff said.
As Witkoff spoke, the parallels between World Liberty Financial and Trump's other recent venture became clear. Trump Media and Technology Groupwere inevitable.
In the case of Trump Media, two former cast members of Trump's hit NBC reality show “The Apprentice” approached Trump in 2021 with an idea for a new, conservative social media platform.
Three and a half years later, Trump Media's publicly traded stock has added billions of dollars to Trump's net worth, and Truth Social is his preferred social platform.
In addition to Trump and Witkoff, the founders of World Liberty Financial include Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Barron Trump, as well as Witkoff's son Zach Witkoff.
In a copy of an early internal report, known as a white paper, obtained by CoinDesk, Barron is listed as “Chief DeFi Visionary,” Eric and Donald Jr. as “Web3 Ambassadors,” and Trump Sr. as “Chief Crypto Advocate.”
But while the Trumps receive compensation from the project, the platform itself “is not owned, managed, operated or sold by members of the Trump family.”
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.
Until Monday, much of the public knowledge about World Liberty was based on interviews given to the press by Trump's sons last month, as well as a leaked white paper that served as a manifesto of sorts for the crypto project, and conversations with insiders.
Anyone who wanted key details of 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 crypto industry.
Some well-known figures from the crypto world have reached out to Trump in the 2024 election cycle, lending their money and support to the Republican presidential candidate.
At the same time, Trump has made increasingly optimistic arguments about cryptocurrencies during the election campaign, culminating in his keynote speech in July at the biggest Bitcoin event of the year in Nashville, Tennessee.
However, some of these supporters also expressed concern that Trump's own foray into the cryptocurrency world could jeopardize his relationship with the industry as a whole, especially if the launch does not go as planned.
The founders offered few details on Monday about any future timelines for the project, saying only that new information would be shared on official social media channels and warning fans not to fall for scams.
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