WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump has vowed to make America the “crypto capital of the planet” when he returns to the White House. Keeping that promise would likely do him good personally.
As he runs for president, Trump has launched a new cryptocurrency trading venture that he’s promoting on the same social media accounts he’s used for his campaign. His two eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, are also posting about their new platform, called World Liberty Financial, as is his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who is married to Eric and also co-chairs the Republican National Committee.
Trump has long melded his political and business interests, promoting his hotels and golf courses from the White House while simultaneously selling sneakers, Bibles and shares in his social media company during his current campaign. Now, Trump has launched a new profitable venture that could explode in value if he’s elected and given the power to implement legislative and regulatory changes long sought by crypto advocates.
“Taking a pro-crypto stance isn’t necessarily troubling; what’s troubling is doing it while personally benefiting from it,” said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
“The success of this could be closely tied to US economic policy,” Libowitz said.
Cryptocurrencies are forms of digital money that can be traded over the internet without relying on the global banking system. They are typically traded on exchanges, which are marketplaces that can be used to buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies. Exchanges often charge fees for withdrawals of Bitcoin and other currencies.
According to crypto news site CoinDesk, World Liberty Financial is expected to become a borrowing and lending service similar to the recently hacked Dough Finance, an app built by four individuals listed as team members of World Liberty Financial.
Many details about World Liberty Financial, including what Trump and his family members have inside it, are still unknown. After Lara Trump posted on her X account Tuesday about “our purpose at World Liberty,” her husband, Eric Trump, posted online that Lara and his sister, Tiffany, had been hacked.
During his time in the White House, Trump said he was “not a fan” of cryptocurrency, tweeting in 2019: “Unregulated crypto assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trafficking and other illegal activities.”
But Trump has revised his stance and adopted a more positive outlook on cryptocurrencies — from announcing in May that the campaign would begin accepting cryptocurrency donations as part of an effort to build what it calls a “crypto army” in the run-up to Election Day; to attending a bitcoin conference in Nashville this year, promising to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” for bitcoin using the currency the government currently holds.
If re-elected, Trump has talked about exercising more control over monetary policy — suggesting he would pressure the Federal Reserve to set lower interest rates. He’s also promoted decentralized finance, or “DeFi,” a catchall term for using public blockchain space to disrupt traditional finance.
Trump has also talked about subsidizing the use of Bitcoin mining to increase energy production and has vowed to block the creation of a Federal Reserve-managed Central Bank Digital Currency — which would be a digital form of central bank money that would be available to the public. While it’s still in the exploration phase, many crypto advocates oppose a centrally managed digital currency.
The Trump and Harris campaigns did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Embracing cryptocurrency could be another way for the Trump campaign to reach younger men, including by reaching out to conservative influencers. Crypto is also appealing to Trump allies who worry about government influence in global markets and generally worry about the reach of the so-called “deep state.”
Dustin Stockton, a pro-Trump activist turned crypto influencer, said he supports the former president’s crypto efforts and the upcoming launch of World Liberty Financial.
“The Trump family’s involvement and engagement, and learning what crypto is, I think is actually a really positive thing,” he said. Stockton points to the Biden administration as anti-crypto, citing SEC head Gary Gensler’s pushback against companies like Coinbase and Binance.
Although the White House issued an executive order on digital assets in 2022, no substantive laws have been passed by Congress or signed into law by the White House. Stockton said the lack of clarity in written rules by the Biden administration, as well as the SEC’s heavy-handed enforcement of crypto companies through a series of lawsuits, indicates “there is an absence of clarity and selective and arbitrary enforcement of regulations.”
“Frankly, I would like all members of the government to have a better understanding of what this means,” he said.
And JW Verret, a law professor at George Mason University, said Trump would not break the law by launching a new project and promoting policies that would benefit from it.
“I don’t see any problem with anybody, anybody in government owning assets or starting a business. In fact, I think it’s difficult for anybody to regulate a particular type of business unless they work in that business,” he said.
