American presidential candidate, Donald Trump has reportedly launched a crypto company. Called the World Liberty Financial, the purpose of the crypto company is to ramp up donations to his presidential campaign which has lagged behind that of bitter rival, Kamala Harris of the Democratic party.
While very few details were disclosed about how the crypto scheme will work, one important aspect is that it will include a crypto token which will be sold to the public. The project’s founding team will also get to keep some tokens as compensation for their work.
After replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Vice President Harris was greeted with a deluge of donations to her campaign. As of the time of this report, the Harris campaign has amassed more than $500 million in donations from businesspeople, celebrities and hundreds of thousands of individuals. This is a figure the Trump campaign is struggling to cope with.
Thus, the former president is introducing the World Liberty Financial scheme in a bid to establish channels for wealthy cryptocurrency players who may want to donate to his campaign. This is coming just hours after an attempt on his life on Monday while playing golf.
New project completes Donald Trump’s U-turn on crypto
President Donald Trump has not always been a fan of cryptocurrencies. Indeed, he has previously warned that Bitcoin is a scam against the dollar and as such, must be limited. However, as part of his manifesto going into a crunch November election, the former president appeared to have taken a new and much more favourable stand on digital currencies.
First, he promised to loosen the rules and regulations around crypto which has put many crypto chiefs on the warpath with the Biden administration, calling them the Democrats’ unlawful and un-American crypto crackdown”. Then he promised to “defend the right to mine Bitcoin” by crashing mining fees and providing the cheapest energy for mining through fossil fuel and nuclear energy.
Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate, JD Vance who holds roughly $250,000 in crypto has also consistently backed digital currencies.
President Trump acknowledged that his children, including his youngest son Barron, had shown “great judgement” on the technology and opened his eyes to what they truly are.
“I think my children opened my eyes more than anything else,” he said. “Barron’s a young guy, but he knows it. He talks about his wallet, he’s got four wallets or something … he knows this stuff inside and out,” he said.
Following his promise to loosen digital currency rules, a handful of influential Silicon Valley investors threw their weight behind his campaign. They include billionaire venture capitalists, Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen.
Also throwing their weight behind the Trump campaign are crypto-preneurs, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss who have always complained about the Biden administration’s highhandedness in dealing with the crypto industry. Both announced that they would donate $1 million to the Republican’s campaign.
This is not Donald Trump’s first rump into digital currencies though as he has previously amassed more than $7 million from a “non-fungible token” project. The project included selling digital collectibles like digital mugshots and Trump-themed trading cards to his fanbase. At the time, the former president also launched a line of crypto-themed trainers.
On the road to announcing this cryptocurrency project, Donald Trump’s son, Donald Jr has warned supporters in a post on X to “beware of fake tokens claiming to be part of the Trump project”. The presidential candidate is of the belief that World Liberty Financial would “leave slow and outdated big banks behind.”
See also: Bitcoin rises to $62,508 following Trump’s assassination attempt
Technext Newsletter
Get the best of Africa’s daily tech to your inbox – first thing every morning.
Join the community now!
