Trump's family has withdrawn more than $500 million worth of crypto transactions, with their companies sitting on both ends of the transaction. According to Wall Street Journalthe former real estate dynasty now makes a large portion of that money from codes.
Donald Trump, a private company launched last year by private company Donald Trump, is World Liberty Financial at the heart of its business. Earlier this month, World Liberty took over a small payments company called Alt5 Sigma.
After the acquisition, Alt5 raised $750 million from outside investors. The company then used the money to purchase WLFI tokens.
This setup means the Trump family sold their own tokens to the companies it manages. The purchase will send three-quarters of WLFI's revenue directly to Trump-owned entities, setting a payday of at least $5 billion.
Trump's son takes control when World Liberty installs new leadership
This transaction directly affected Alt5 global freedom. Zach Witkoff, co-founder and CEO of World Liberty, has become chairman of Alt5. Eric Trump has joined the board.
The new Chief Investment Officer was also selected by World Liberty, founder of Stablecoin, USD1 push-focused crypto. Witkov and Eric celebrated at the Nasdaq on August 13th by ringing the opening bell. Witkoff, whose father is Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, gave a speech representing both companies.
Alt5's plan is to build the WLFI Treasury Department using a strategy modeled after a strategy that uses fairness to buy Bitcoin (rebranded micro-strategy). However, there is one important difference. The strategy purchased assets in the open market.
Alt5 buys WLFI directly from the freedom of the world, creating it and controlling its supply. While Alt5 paid $0.20 per token, a 50% markup from recent private sales, Witkoff said it was still cheaper than the WLFI futures prices traded on crypto exchanges.
These circular transactions, with the same people running on both ends, are common in crypto, but would have been holding a red flag in traditional finance. Still, several former regulators reportedly report that they are likely to conform to the securities law as long as they are all disclosed to investors.
WLFI trading debut to test the Trump family's crypto empire
WLFI is scheduled to begin trading on Monday, the equivalent of a crypto IPO. World Liberty releases only a small amount to the open market. Most of the 33 billion tokens they hold are not available anytime soon, and some early investors are not yet able to sell.
Based on disclosure and exchange data, the Trump family holds more than $6 billion in WLFI, with President Trump personally controlling about two-thirds of that.
If WLFIs acquire value, Trump's families will earn billions from future sales as well as the tokens they hold. But nothing is guaranteed. Previous Trump-themed coins surged at launch and later crashed. Larger holders seeking to sell even small quantities could potentially cut prices.
World Liberty began selling WLFI personally last year, raising $650 million. One of the investors was Justin Sang, the Chinese billionaire behind Tron. WLFIs are not making profits for owners, but they can vote on corporate issues.
The other cryptographic product of World Liberty, USD1, is stable and fixed to the dollar. They plan to launch the mobile app soon to scale using Alt5's e-commerce tool.
Until mid-2023, Alt5 was not even in the crypto space. It acted as a Janone with a focus on recycling and painkillers. In May, Janone paid a fine to resolve the SEC's allegations that his income had risen. That same month, it bought a crypto company named Alt5 Sigma and changed its name. World Liberty later used WLFI tokens to buy and control stocks at ALT5.
Currently, World Liberty plans to use USD1 profits to buy more WLFIs and copy the stock buyback logic. President Trump also owns a large position in other crypto assets. He socially runs the truth and holds the code on billions of dollars of Trump Coins, Memecoin and Trump Media.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt argues that “the president and his family have never engaged in conflicts of interest or have been involved in it.”
The Alt5 funding round brought key supporters. Steve Cohen's Point 72 has capitalized. Hong Kong-based company Soul Ventures has also invested $85 million. Warren Hui, co-founder of Soul Ventures, said he is betting on the team behind World Liberty. “They are launching products at the right time with the right team,” Hui called the Alt5 purchase price “fair.”
