The Trump family notched as much as $6 billion in paper wealth yesterday after its flagship crypto venture opened trading of a new digital currency. Via the Wall St. Journal:
The launch is akin to an initial public offering, in which the cryptocurrency, called WLFI, can now be bought and sold on the open market like a listed company’s shares. Beforehand, people who had privately bought WLFI from the Trump venture, World Liberty Financial, hadn’t been able to exchange their tokens.
The trading debut was most likely the biggest financial success for the president’s family since the inauguration. The Trump family, including President Trump himself, holds just under a quarter of all WLFI tokens in existence. Trump’s three sons are co-founders of World Liberty, while it names the president a “Co-Founder Emeritus.”
World Liberty says founders and team members’ tokens remain “locked,” meaning they still can’t sell them. But the trading launch now puts a real-world valuation on their holdings, which previously were valued based on private sales.
Of course, crypto is explicitly designed for crooks to hide financial transactions, so I'm sure the Trump family will continue to prosper in this area.
