Trump’s new crypto business could create more conflicts if he’s elected president

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump is promising to make America the “crypto capital of the planet” if he returns to the White House. Fulfilling that promise would likely pay off for him personally.

Amidst his run for president, Trump has launched a new venture to trade cryptocurrencies that he’s promoting on the same social media accounts he uses for his campaign. His two eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, are also posting about their new platform, called World Liberty Financial, as is his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who is married to Eric and also serves as co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

Trump has long melded his political and business interests, promoting his hotels and golf courses in the White House while selling sneakers, Bibles and shares in his social media company during his current campaign. Now, Trump has launched a new moneymaking venture that could explode in value if he’s elected and gets the power to push through legislative and regulatory changes long sought by crypto advocates.

“Taking a pro-crypto stance is not necessarily troubling; the troubling aspect is doing it while starting a way to personally benefit from it,” said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

“The success of this could be very tied to American economic policy,” Libowitz said.

Cryptocurrencies are forms of digital money that can be traded over the internet without relying on the global banking system. They are commonly traded on exchanges, which are marketplaces that can be used to buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies. Exchanges often charge fees for withdrawals of Bitcoin and other currencies.

World Liberty Financial is expected to be a borrowing and lending service similar to recently hacked Dough Finance, an app built by four people listed as World Liberty Financial team members, according to crypto news site CoinDesk.

Many details about World Liberty Financial, including what stake Trump and his family members have in it, are still unknown. After Lara Trump posted Tuesday on her X account about “our goal at World Liberty,” her husband, Eric Trump, posted online that Lara and his sister, Tiffany, had been hacked.

During his time in the White House, Trump said he was “not a fan” of cryptocurrency and tweeted in 2019, “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”

But Trump has reversed himself and taken on a favorable view of cryptocurrencies — from announcing in May that the campaign would begin accepting donations in cryptocurrency as part of an effort to build what it calls a “crypto army” leading up to Election Day; to attending a bitcoin conference in Nashville this year, promising to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet” and create a bitcoin “strategic reserve” using the currency that the government currently holds.

If elected again, Trump has talked about exerting more control over monetary policy — suggesting he would press the Federal Reserve to set lower interest rates. He is also promoting decentralized finance, or “DeFi,” which is a general term for using public blockchain space to disrupt the traditional finance world.

Trump has also talked about subsidizing the use of Bitcoin mining in order to increase energy production and has vowed to block the creation of a Federal Reserve-administered Central Bank Digital Currency — which is a digital form of central bank money that would be available to the public. While it is still in exploration, many crypto advocates oppose a centrally run digital currency.

The Trump and Harris campaigns did not respond to requests by The Associated Press for comment.

Embracing cryptocurrency could be another way for the Trump campaign to reach younger men, including by engaging with conservative influencers. Crypto also appeals to Trump allies who are concerned about government influence over global markets and worry generally about the reach of the so-called “deep state.”

Dustin Stockton, a pro-Trump activist turned crypto influencer, said he is supportive of the former president’s endeavors in the crypto space and the upcoming launch of World Liberty Financial.

“The Trump family’s engagement and involvement, and learning what it is that underlies crypto, I think is actually a really positive thing,” he said. Stockton points to the Biden administration as anti-crypto, citing SEC head Gary Gensler’s pursuit of firms like Coinbase and Binance.

While the White House issued an executive order on digital assets in 2022, no substantive laws have been passed by Congress or written into regulation by the White House. Stockton said the lack of clarity of written rules by the Biden administration, as well as the SEC’s heavy-handed enforcement on crypto firms through a series of lawsuits, indicates “there’s no clarity and there’s selective and arbitrary enforcement of regulations.”

“Frankly, I’d like to see all members of government get a better understanding of what this is,” he said.

And J.W. Verret, a professor at George Mason University’s law school, said Trump would not violate the law in launching a new project and promoting policies that would benefit it.

“I don’t see any problem with someone, anyone in government who owns assets or who starts a business — in fact, I think it’s hard for someone to regulate a particular type of business unless they work in that business,” he said.