Trump's World Liberty crypto tokens to become tradable
The World Liberty tokens, known as $WLFI, were sold to investorsafter 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that the hundreds of millions of dollars from crypto deals struck while Trump is in office could hypothetically be withdrawn at any time, or at the latest, be at his disposal when he leaves office in less than four years.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 assetmarketplace legislation. That is a clear conflict of interest."
99.9% SUPPORT
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.
(Reporting by Tom Wilson in London; additional reporting by Lawrence Delevingne in Boston. Edited by Tom Lasseter and Aurora Ellis)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
2 hours ago
- The Star
EU chief to meet Trump for trade talks
BRUSSELS, July 25 (Xinhua) -- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday that she will meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday to discuss transatlantic trade. Von der Leyen said in a post on social media platform X that the two leaders had a "good call" and agreed to meet in Scotland to "discuss transatlantic trade relations, and how we can keep them strong." Trump told reporters before departing for Scotland that "I would say that we have a 50-50 chance, maybe less than that, but a 50-50 chance of making a deal with the EU." The president is on a five-day visit, during which he is expected to visit two of his golf resorts and meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Earlier this month, Trump threatened to impose 30 percent tariffs on European Union (EU) goods starting Aug. 1, prompting Brussels to accelerate trade talks. Should talks fail, EU member states have backed a retaliatory tariff package on around 93 billion euros (109 billion U.S. dollars) worth of U.S. imports, due to kick in on Aug. 7. (1 euro = 1.17 dollar)
The Star
2 hours ago
- The Star
Exclusive-US diplomats asked if non-whites qualify for Trump refugee program for South Africans
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -In early July, the top official at the U.S. embassy in South Africa reached out to Washington asking for clarification on a contentious U.S. policy: could non-whites apply for a refugee program geared toward white South Africans if they met other requirements? President Donald Trump's February executive order establishing the program specified that it was for "Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination," referring to an ethnic group descended mostly from Dutch settlers. In a diplomatic cable sent July 8, embassy Charge d'Affairs David Greene asked whether the embassy could process claims from other minority groups claiming race-based discrimination such as "coloured" South Africans who speak Afrikaans. In South Africa the term colouredrefers to mixed-raced people, a classification created by the apartheid regime still in use today. The answer came back days later in an email from Spencer Chretien, the highest-ranking official in the State Department's refugee and migration bureau, saying the program is intended for white people. Reuters was unable to independently verify the precise language in the email which was described to the news agency by three sources familiar with its contents. The State Department, responding to a request for comment on July 18, did not specifically comment on the email or the cable but described the scope of the policy as wider than the guidance in Chretien's email. The department said U.S. policy is to consider both Afrikaners and other racial minorities for resettlement, echoing guidance posted on its website in May saying that applicants "must be of Afrikaner ethnicity or be a member of a racial minority in South Africa." Chretien declined to comment through a State Department spokesperson. Greene did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. The internal back-and-forth between the embassy and the State Department - which hasn't been previously reported - illustrates the confusion in how to implement a policy designed to help white Afrikaners in a racially diverse country that includes mixed-race people who speak Afrikaans, as well as whites who speak English. So far the State Department has resettled 88 South Africans under the program, including the initial group of 59 who arrived in May. Another 15 are expected to arrive by the end of August, one of the sources said. Trump, a Republican who recaptured the White House pledging a wide-ranging immigration crackdown, placed an indefinite freeze on refugee admissions from around the world after taking office, saying the U.S. would only admit refugees who "can fully and appropriately assimilate." Weeks later, he issued an executive order that called for the U.S. to resettle Afrikaners, describing them as victims of "violence against racially disfavored landowners," allegations that echoed far-right claims but which have been contested by South Africa's government. Since the executive order, U.S. diplomats working to implement the program have been deliberating internally about which racial groups could be considered eligible, one of the sources said. In the July 8 cable, Greene laid out a summary of the different ethnic and racial groups in the country before seeking guidance on eligibility. In addition to Afrikaners and mixed-raceSouth Africans, Greene mentioned indigenous South Africans known as the Khoisan people. He said that members of the Jewish community had also expressed interest, but that in South Africa they are considered a religious minority and not a racial group. "In the absence of other guidance, [the U.S. embassy] intends to give consideration to well-founded claims of persecution based on race for other racial minorities," Greene wrote. At least one family identified as colouredhas already traveled to the U.S. as refugees, two people familiar with the matter said. The cable forced the administration to clarify its position on whether the policy is for whites only, and if it does include other aggrieved minorities, who would qualify, two of the people familiar with the matter said. Chretien, a conservative who wrote op-eds promoting the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" plan to overhaul the federal government, is the senior official at the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. During the apartheid era, which ended with the first democratic elections in 1994, South Africa maintained a racially segregated society with separate schools, neighborhoods and public facilities for people classified as Black, coloured, white or Asian. Blacks make up 81% of South Africa's population, according to 2022 census data. Coloured South Africans make up 8%, and Indians 3%. Afrikaners and other white South Africans constitute 7% of the population but own three-quarters of the privately held land in the country. When asked about the program in May, Trump said he was not giving Afrikaners preferential treatment because they are white. "They happen to be white, but whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me," he said. In response to a request for comment, a White House official said the administration's policy reflected Trump's executive order. 'We will prioritize refugee admissions for South African citizens, including Afrikaners and other racial minorities in South Africa, who have been targeted by the discriminatory laws of the South African government," the official said. The assertion that minority white South Africans face discrimination from the Black majority has spread in far-right circles for years andbeen echoed by white South African-born Elon Musk, a U.S. citizen who served as a top White House aide during the first four months of Trump's administration. The South African government has rejected the allegations of persecution and a "white genocide." There is no evidence to back up claims of widespread, race-based attacks in the country. During acombative Oval Office meetingwith South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in May, Trump showed a printed image of a Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he falsely presented as evidence of mass killings of white South Africans. The South African Chamber of Commerce said earlier this year that 67,000 people were interested in the program. (Reporting by Ted Hesson and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington; Editing by Don Durfee and Michael Learmonth)
The Star
5 hours ago
- The Star
EU, US could reach framework trade deal this weekend, EU officials say
FILE PHOTO: U.S. and European Union flags and a "tariffs" label are seen in this illustration taken April 10, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union and the United States could reach a framework deal on trade this weekend, ending months of uncertainty for European industry, EU officials and diplomats said on Friday. The deal would likely include a 15% baseline tariff on all EU goods entering the United States and probably a 50% tariff on European steel and aluminium, the officials and diplomats said. U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said there was a 50-50 chance or perhaps less that the United States would reach a trade agreement with the European Union, adding that Brussels wanted to "make a deal very badly". One of the sources said a weekend deal seemed likely as the "agreement is basically in the hands of Trump now." A source familiar with the negotiations said there was a "good chance" European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would meet Trump in Scotland over the weekend. A spokesperson for the Commission did not respond to multiple requests for comment on a possible meeting. Trump will visit his golf course on Scotland's west coast and is set to meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday. Combining goods, services and investment, the EU and the United States are each other's largest trading partners by far. The American Chamber of Commerce to the EU warned in March that any conflict jeopardised $9.5 trillion of business in the world's most important commercial relationship. The EU is facing U.S. tariffs on more than 70% of its exports - 50% on steel and aluminium, 25% on cars and car parts and a 10% levy on most other EU goods, which U.S. President Donald Trump has said he would hike to 30% on August 1, a level EU officials said would wipe out whole chunks of transatlantic commerce. Further tariffs on copper and pharmaceuticals are looming. The EU has prepared countermeasures that could enter into force on August 7 in the event that talks collapse. (Reporting by Julia Payne and Jan Strupczewski; Editing by David Holmes)
