Why Trump’s Crypto Empire Is in Chaos

freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: "motherjones_right_rail_1", slotId: "ROS_ATF_300x600" }); Mother Jones illustration; Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. One of the Trump family’s biggest crypto plays is in turmoil. Investors are furious. The value of its digital tokens is tanking. And no one seems to know what exactly is going on with its finances. When it was unveiled 20 months ago, World Liberty Financial was pitched as a firm that would provide a new, blockchain-based way to bank. But it has yet to launch a consumer platform to do much of that, and the price of one of its few offerings—a digital asset that would ostensibly let owners vote on the company’s big financial decisions—has cratered in recent weeks, losing 50 percent of its value since January. And now, following a nasty war of words, the company is being sued by one of its major investors: erstwhile Trump-crypto super-fan Justin Sun. Buyers still might be getting something valuable: the opportunity to put money directly into the first family’s pockets. But amid the chaos, World Liberty Financial (or WLFI, for short) has emerged as one of the Trumps’ most effective sources of enrichment during the 47th president’s second term in office. They’ve reportedly raked in more than $200 million by selling shares in the company and the tokens it produces. And even if the price of these assets falls, buyers still might be getting something valuable: the opportunity to put money directly into the first family’s pockets. For a lot of folks older than Barron Trump (the company’s official “DeFi visionary”, all this is pretty baffling stuff. So let’s explain it, starting from the beginning. What exactly is World Liberty Financial, anyway? World Liberty Financial was founded by the Trump family and a small group of associates—including the Witkoff family—in 2024, at the height of the presidential campaign, as a decentralized finance, or DeFi, company. DeFi refers to crypto-based financial services platforms that, in theory, take all of the traditional operations of a big bank and move them onto the blockchain, the digital ledger behind well-known crypto products like bitcoin. The Trumps initially held as much as 86 percent of the company, but in 2025, shortly before Trump’s inauguration, they sold a big chunk to the brother of the United Arab Emirates’ ruler. But the Trumps still control the company and the majority of the digital governance tokens that it has issued. But what does WLFI actually do? Supposedly it’s going to free the world from meddling, controlling, and woke banks—and from Wall Street financiers. The idea behind DeFi is that most of the transactions that people currently do through banks—lending and borrowing money and transferring funds, for example—can be carried out on the blockchain more cheaply and transparently. When the Trumps announced they were establishing World Liberty, they leaned hard into the idea that they would be liberating the masses from the “financial elites.” DJT: For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites. It's time we take a stand—together. #BeDefiant https://t.co/DuEtfRfrjt pic.twitter.com/txPz5FVSsK— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 22, 2024 Despite the dramatic imagery, that hasn’t yet happened; the company’s website still says its app is “coming soon.” Are companies…

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