Copycats have targeted a soon-to-be-announced cryptocurrency company linked to presidential candidate Donald Trump and his family, exploiting loopholes in information about the project to promote inauthentic cryptocurrency tokens.
Led by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s sons, the Trumps have been on a social media campaign to promote an upcoming project, called World Liberty Financial. For nearly a month, the family has been teasing the launch in cryptic posts that offer few details.
In a Publication X On August 6, Eric wrote that he had “truly fallen in love with cryptocurrencies.” The next day, on Another publicationDonald Jr. said he was “about to shake up the cryptocurrency world” and warned his followers not to “get left behind.” On August 22, in a mail On Truth Social, the former president himself promoted the initiative: “For too long, average Americans have been squeezed by big banks and financial elites. It’s time for us to take a stand, together,” Trump wrote.
But the family has yet to provide first-hand details about World Liberty Financial’s purpose or functionality, and outside operators are taking advantage of the information vacuum.
In late August, an advertisement appeared at the bottom of the Telegram channel for the project, which has been touted by the Trump family as “the ONLY (sic) place to get the official news,” which promotes a giveaway for inauthentic crypto tokens. The ad, which is still active at the time of writing, leads to an external web page that features an illustration of Donald Trump unbuttoning his shirt at the buttons to reveal a Superman-style suit underneath with a “T”-shaped logo. Visitors are promised up to $15,000 in crypto tokens and invited to “connect your wallet now (sic) and make the world great again.”
On August 29, a post on World Liberty Financial’s Telegram channel warned subscribers (now numbering over 200,000) not to be fooled by the announcement. “We have been made aware of some ads circulating on Telegram claiming to be from us and offering fake airdrops or token sales,” the post said. “We are NOT doing any airdrops or selling any tokens at this time.” But a week later, the announcement is still up, and some 50,000 people have subscribed to the competing Telegram channel associated with it. It’s unclear how much money, if any, has been stolen.
Eric Trump did not respond to questions about the inability to prevent inauthentic ads from being displayed through World Liberty Financial’s Telegram channel. Telegram did not respond to a request for comment.
On September 3, the X accounts belonging to Lara Trump, Eric’s wife, and Tiffany Trump, the former president’s daughter, were allegedly compromised and used by hackers to sell another crypto token supposedly related to World Liberty Financial. The posts have since been deleted, but screenshots indicate that they were seen by at least 200,000 people. Data from DEXTools Token Analysis Platform suggests that around 2,000 people collectively purchased $1.8 million worth of fake tokens.