Former President Donald Trump is taking his courtship of the crypto industry to the next level.
At X Spaces on Monday night, the Republican presidential candidate spoke with internet personality and Web3 activist Farokh Sarmad for about 30 minutes about the “crypto state.”
“If we don’t do it, China will,” Trump told Sarmad, referring to making cryptocurrency mainstream. “We have to be the biggest and the best.
Before Monday’s announcement, Trump said he would use the event to launch his latest venture: a new crypto-banking platform called World Liberty Financial.
But in the end it was Chase Herro, a self-described “network bag”, and Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump’s old friend, Steve Witkoff, who spoke about World Liberty Financial, more than an hour and a half into the event that. .
In addition to Herro and Witkoff, Trump’s sons, Donald Jr., Eric, and Barron, are also involved in the business, a cryptocurrency business focused on decentralized finance, known as “DeFi.”
The extent of the former president’s involvement in World Liberty Financial remains unknown, although a person familiar with the project told CNBC that Trump has not been heavily involved so far. The New York Times reports that the elderly Trump has the title of “Chief Crypto Advocate.”
Details about the company are still scarce. According to CNBC, a small group of Trump family members and insiders will hold 70% of the equity initially. The startup would allow users to borrow and lend cryptocurrencies while paying investors upfront fees.
Trump’s sons, Eric and Don Jr. have been teasing the launch of World Liberty Financial for weeks, writing about it on X and linking to a Telegram page with details about the project.
The move comes as Trump ramps up his efforts to engage with the crypto crowd — a courtship that, as BI’s Kenneth Niemeyer wrote in July, has led him to become a true crypto stan.
Back in May, while holding his own credit NFTs, Trump criticized President Joe Biden and Democrats for being too “anti” crypto while putting himself crypto candidate.
During Monday’s announcement, Trump hinted at his changing views on crypto to the positive response to his NFTs. The Republican candidate also cited his three sons for helping him learn about digital currency.
Trump called the cryptocurrency “the metal industry of the last 100 years” at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville in July. He also promised a crowd of crypto industry leaders that he would “ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the world’s greatest bitcoin power and create “national strategic stock bitcoin a.”
“I want to make sure it’s nice and tight and everything, but I agree with it,” the former president said at the time. “If you like crypto, you better vote for Trump.”
As November approaches, Trump is betting that all his crypto wooing will pay off at the ballot box.
During Monday’s livestream, Trump took an ominous approach, urging crypto enthusiasts to vote for him lest they face censure from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
“If for some bad reason, bad things happen and we don’t win the election, those people who were being investigated … in the crypto world, they’re going to live in hell,” Trump said.
Analysts estimate that if Trump wins, bitcoin may rise to $ 125,000 by the end of the year, while the victory of Kamala Harris may cause the currency to decrease to only $ 75,000.
But Trump hasn’t always been like crypto.
While in office, Trump said he was not a “fan” of crypto and that “its value is very volatile and based on thin air.” In 2021, Trump told Fox Business twice that it “seems like a scam” and that investing in cryptocurrencies is a “disaster waiting to happen.”