Trump Family Profits Despite Tepid World Liberty Crypto Token Launch

The Trump family's cryptocurrency venture, known as World Liberty Financial, had a tepid first day of open-market trading on Sept 1, surging in value initially before losing most of those gains.

- Eric Lipton

WASHINGTON — The Trump family's cryptocurrency venture, known as World Liberty Financial, had a tepid first day of open-market trading on Sept 1, surging in value initially before losing most of those gains.

But because of an unusual insider arrangement, the Trump family was still assured of a considerable payday as its expanding universe of crypto ventures continued to break norms for business dealings by presidential families.

World Liberty's cryptocurrency token, which is traded as $WLFI, was created in October 2024 by the Trump family and its partners, who include Mr Zach Witkoff, the son of Mr Steve Witkoff, who is the Middle East envoy for President Donald Trump.

The price of the token started trading at 8am at 20 US cents and surged in the first five minutes to as high as about 40 US cents.

It then fell rapidly, settling around 22 US cents as at 5pm, lower than many followers of World Liberty, at least on social media, had expected.

To help prop up the trading price, one major $WLFI holder, Mr Justin Sun, announced on Sept 1 that he had no immediate plans to sell his tokens. Mr Sun had been targeted by securities investigators during the Biden administration, only to see his case frozen once Mr Trump returned to office.