Donald Trump Rolls Out World Liberty Financial, A New Crypto Venture

A day after an apparent assassination attempt against Donald J. Trump, the former president appeared on a livestream on X on Monday to champion his latest business venture: cryptocurrencies.

“Crypto is one of those things we have to do,” Mr. Trump said. “Whether we like it or not, I have to do it.”

Beside him were his collaborators, including a family friend, some of Mr. Trump’s sons and a pair of little-known crypto enthusiasts with no experience running a high-profile business. Together, they were rolling out World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that has raised concerns about Mr. Trump’s conflicts of interest and alarmed some of his most vocal supporters in the industry.

Mr. Trump has promoted the project since August, but its exact purpose remains unclear. On the livestream, he did not address the business directly, deferring to his partners. One of them has described himself as “the dirtbag of the internet,” while another used to teach classes on how to seduce women.

It’s unusual for a presidential candidate to embark on a new business just weeks before Election Day. But throughout his political career, Mr. Trump has engaged in business dealings that government ethics experts have flagged as problematic. He is the majority owner of Trump Media & Technology Group, the publicly traded parent company of his social media platform Truth Social, which accounts for some $2 billion of his personal wealth.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said that if Mr. Trump is elected, his involvement in the crypto venture would create serious conflicts of interest. The Securities and Exchange Commission has argued that virtually all cryptocurrencies are unregistered securities and ought to be regulated like stocks traded on Wall Street.

Mr. Trump “would be able to push regulatory agencies to favor businesses he is involved in,” Ms. Brian said. Ethics experts have said that his ownership of the social media company raises similar issues.

Representatives for the Trump Organization and World Liberty Financial did not respond to requests for comment.

For years, Mr. Trump was a crypto skeptic who decried Bitcoin as a “scam.” But on the campaign trail, he has morphed into a vocal supporter, speaking at a popular industry conference and drawing donations from crypto executives.

Planning for World Liberty Financial began as early as July, when a trademark application for the new platform was filed by a Puerto Rico-based company, AMG Software Solutions. The next month, Mr. Trump and his two oldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., started posting about the project on X.

Privately, people involved in World Liberty Financial have pitched it as a borrowing and lending platform, according to three people with knowledge of the project. A white paper for the venture, reviewed by The New York Times, said that it would feature a new cryptocurrency called $WLFI that would be sold to the public.

On its official X and Telegram accounts, World Liberty Financial has said the project aims to drive “mass adoption of stablecoins,” a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value of $1. One person briefed on the project described it as similar to an existing service called Instadapp, an application that allows users to manage their investments across a range of crypto platforms.

Several members of the Trump family have roles in the business, according to a list of team members included in the white paper. Mr. Trump’s title is “Chief Crypto Advocate.” Barron Trump, his 18-year-old son, is listed as the project’s “DeFi Visionary,” a reference to the branch of crypto known as decentralized finance. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are each described as a “Web3 Ambassador.”

A disclaimer at the end of the document said the platform isn’t owned or managed by Mr. Trump or his family, though family members may receive compensation from the project’s developers. (The white paper was earlier reported by CoinDesk.)

Alongside the Trumps, the group overseeing World Liberty Financial includes a family friend and an assortment of digital currency enthusiasts with no track record running high-profile crypto businesses.

Steve Witkoff, a real estate magnate and close friend of Mr. Trump, and his son Zach are both involved in World Liberty Financial, according to the white paper. The elder Mr. Witkoff was golfing with Mr. Trump on Sunday when the U.S. Secret Service stopped the apparent assassination attempt on the former president at his golf course in Palm Beach, Fla.

Behind the scenes, Steve Witkoff has taken a hands-on role, according to a person familiar with the planning. He envisioned the project partly as way to give Barron Trump some experience with entrepreneurship, the person said, and steer him away from memecoins, a scam-ridden segment of the crypto industry. A spokesman for Mr. Witkoff declined to comment.

During the X event on Monday, Mr. Trump described Barron Trump as a crypto enthusiast. “He’s got four wallets or something,” Mr. Trump said. “He knows this stuff inside out.”

Chase Herro, a crypto entrepreneur who has called himself an internet “dirtbag,” is another leader of the venture, according to the white paper and two people with knowledge of the project. (Mr. Herro sometimes spells his last name “Hero.”)

Mr. Herro, 39, has said that as a young man, he was a habitual drug offender and was imprisoned, but later turned his life around and became rich. In 2022, Mr. Herro appeared at a crypto seminar hosted by Jordan Belfort, who inspired the “Wolf of Wall Street” movie. At the event, Mr. Herro called stablecoins “the biggest innovation since sliced bread,” and said his favorite of the coins was “vivacious and insane and almost borderline a Ponzi scheme.”

Over the years, Mr. Herro has worked closely with another entrepreneur, Zachary Folkman, who is also listed in the World Liberty Financial white paper. In 2010, Mr. Folkman started a company called Date Hotter Girls, which offered seminars on “attracting, dating, and keeping women of beauty and quality.”

Mr. Folkman and Mr. Herro have pursued a range of business ventures together, first in the U.S. Virgin Islands and later in Puerto Rico. Both have homes in Puerto Rico, which has become a haven for crypto enthusiasts who were drawn by a generous tax break, according to public records. Mr. Folkman is listed in a government database as one of the thousands of people living in Puerto Rico who receive the tax break.

Before they set up shop in Puerto Rico, Mr. Folkman and Mr. Herro ran an internet advertising and media company in the U.S. Virgin Islands, The Nexus Group, which received a similar business tax break. Mr. Herro also ran a separate crypto trading business there called Pacer Capital.

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman worked with Alex Golubitsky, a lawyer listed in the white paper as World Liberty Financial’s legal counsel.

In an email, Mr. Golubitsky said he could not discuss the crypto venture. But he referred to Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman as “talented tech entrepreneurs.”