Donald Trump on Monday launched his family’s cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial, in a livestreamed interview on social media platform X. The Republican presidential candidate gave few details about the venture but offered his first public comments on the apparent assassination attempt on him a day earlier.
Trump didn’t discuss specifics about World Liberty Financial on Monday or how it would work, moving from questions about cryptocurrency to talk about artificial intelligence and other topics. Instead, he recounted his experience on Sunday, saying he and a friend playing golf “heard gunshots in the air, and I’m guessing probably four or five.”
“I would have loved to have made that last putt,” Trump continued. He thanked the Secret Service agent who saw the barrel of a rifle and began firing at him, as well as law enforcement and a civilian who he said helped locate the suspect.
World Liberty Financial is expected to be a lending and borrowing service used to trade cryptocurrencies, which are forms of digital money that can be traded over the internet without relying on the global banking system. Exchanges often charge fees for withdrawals of bitcoin and other currencies.
Other speakers after Trump, including his eldest son, Don Jr, talked about adopting cryptocurrencies as an alternative to what they claim is a banking system tilted against conservatives.
Experts have said that if a presidential candidate launches a business initiative in the middle of a campaign, it could create ethical conflicts.
“Taking a pro-crypto stance isn’t necessarily worrisome, what’s worrisome is doing so while initiating a way to personally profit from it,” Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said earlier this month.
During his time in the White House, Trump said he was “not a fan” of cryptocurrencies, tweeting in 2019: “Unregulated crypto assets can facilitate illegal conduct, including drug trafficking and other illegal activities.” However, during this election cycle, he changed his mind and adopted a favorable view of cryptocurrencies.
In May, he announced that his campaign would begin accepting cryptocurrency donations as part of an effort to build what he calls a “crypto army” before Election Day. He attended a bitcoin conference in Nashville this year, promising to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoins using the currency the government currently holds.
Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University who has conducted research on cryptocurrencies, said she was skeptical of Trump’s change of heart on cryptocurrencies.
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“I think it’s fair to say that this change has been motivated in part by financial interests,” he said.
Cryptocurrency enthusiasts welcomed the change and viewed the launch as a positive sign for investors if Trump regains the White House.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris’s campaign has not offered policy proposals on how she would regulate digital assets like cryptocurrencies.
In an effort to attract cryptocurrency investors, a group of Democrats, including New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, participated in a Crypto 4 Harris online event in August. Neither Harris nor members of her campaign team attended the event.