Trump's World Liberty crypto tokens to become tradable
The World Liberty tokens, known as $WLFI, were sold to investors after the Trump family and their partners launched the venture - a "decentralised finance" platform that has also issued a stablecoin - last autumn.
The tokens were not made tradeable at their initial sale. Instead, they gave holders a right to vote on some changes to the business, such as its underlying code. Early investors have said the primary draw of $WLFI was the connection to Trump and, in turn, their expectations the tokens would grow in value due to his backing.
Making the tokens tradeable would see investors determine their price, enabling speculation, earning trading fees for exchanges that list them and likely stoking interest from a wider swath of crypto investors.
The extent to which the Trump family, which reaps three-quarters of revenues from the initial sales of the tokens, will benefit from their wider trading is not clear.
Gains in the tokens' price would, however, swell the value of the family's token holdings, the exact level of which is unclear.
World Liberty and Trump's other crypto businesses have faced criticism from Democratic lawmakers and ethics experts as the president's administration reshapes regulations in the booming crypto sector.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and Democratic Representative Maxine Waters sent a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year in which they said, "The Trump family's financial stake in World Liberty Financial represents an unprecedented conflict of interest with the potential to influence the Trump Administration's oversight—or lack thereof—of the cryptocurrency industry."
The World Liberty tokens have not been designated as securities by the SEC, meaning they are not subject to the same scrutiny as investments like stocks.
The White House has said Trump's assets are in a trust managed by his children and that there are no conflicts of interest.
The White House has not released the details of the trust arrangement. The Trump family business has been placed into a trust whose sole beneficiary is the president, meaning that the hundreds of millions of dollars from crypto deals struck while Trump is in office could hypothetically be withdrawn at any time, or at the latest, be at his disposal when he leaves office in less than four years.
Trump's company, DT Marks DEFI LLC, was set to receive 22.5 billion out of a total 100 billion $WLFI tokens, according to a description of the project released in October. The president held 15.75 billion of the tokens at the end of last year, according to a public financial disclosure report published last month.
The Trump family has made around $500 million from World Liberty since the platform was launched, according to Reuters calculations based on the company's terms and conditions, transactions traced by crypto analysis firms and publicly-disclosed deals.
Asked by Reuters how the vote would impact the value of $WLFI tokens held by Trump and his family, the White House press office said: "This is not an inquiry for the White House."
The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.
In response to Reuters' questions about how the tokens will become tradable, a World Liberty spokesperson said: "Additional details are forthcoming." The venture says on its website that making $WLFI tradeable "brings us one step closer to building a more open, transparent, and powerful financial system."
"The American public should be very concerned about the president's vested interests in the cryptocurrency market," said Chris Swartz, a former longtime attorney at the U.S. government's Office of Government Ethics, including under both Trump administrations, who now serves as senior ethics counsel for Democracy Defenders Action, a legal advocacy group.
"Not only is it a potential conduit for foreign emoluments and other illicit payments, but it puts the president in competition against other cryptocurrency issuers at the same time he is advocating for digital asset marketplace legislation. That is a clear conflict of interest."
The World Liberty proposal to "formally initiate the tradability of the token," posted on its website on July 9, was approved by 99.94% of around 20,900 votes.
Some voters cited expectations of price gains or support for Trump as reasons for their choice. "We invested to get rich," one wrote on the World Liberty website. "To make america great again," wrote another. The identities of nearly all holders are hidden behind wallet addresses.
A Milan-based person using the name Paolo, who declined to give his full name, told Reuters he had bought 95,000 $WLFI tokens for about $5,000. $WLFI tokens were sold in two initial tranches at $0.015 and $0.05.
Paolo said he voted in favour of making the tokens tradeable and planned to hold the tokens until they reach $12. "Then I try to buy more when the price drops," he said.
The World Liberty proposal said the timing for making the tokens tradeable, and the eligibility requirements, would be determined at a later, unspecified date. Tokens held by World Liberty's founders, team and advisers would not be initially "unlocked" for trading and would be subject to a longer "unlock schedule," it said.
The implementation of approved proposals would "occur within a reasonable time from the passage of the applicable proposal,' according to the project description from October.
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