What is Donald Trump’s new crypto project and why are people worried?

Three years after deriding bitcoin as a “scam” and “disaster waiting to happen”, former US president and convicted felon Donald Trump has unveiled his own crypto project — one he promises will “revolutionise” finance.

Led by his two sons Eric and Donald Jr, with 18-year-old son Barron as its “visionary”, World Liberty Financial claims that it will challenge the power of big banks and revolutionise finance through the launch of a brand new cryptocurrency.

More than a million people tuned in to the live event on X (formerly Twitter), which was broadcast from Trump’s Mar-A-Lago residence in Florida last night, all keen to find out what exactly the new crypto project is.

Monday night’s launch event lasted 90 minutes, with four members of the Trump family and various crypto figures associated with the venture in attendance, however little was actually revealed about what World Liberty Financial is. More time was spent talking about the recent assassination attempt on Trump than the crypto project they were there to launch, though a few key details were confirmed.

The main announcement centred on a new crypto token called WLFi.

“We’re planning to sell and otherwise distribute governance tokens called WLFi in the future,” said Zak Folkman, one of the project’s leaders.

“WLFi tokens are pure governance tokens only providing the right to make proposals and vote on matters related to the platform. WLFi will be non-transferrable and do not provide any economic rights such as dividends or other distributions, and we only want eligible people who actually plan to engage in the direction of World Liberty Financial governance to purchase the token. So this means not people who are motivated simply by an expectation for resale for