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The Trump family’s World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency started trading this week, highlighting the extraordinary degree to which the First Family is trying to profit from being in the Oval Office.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President Trump’s family crypto business seemingly made a fortune this week.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The cryptocurrency World Liberty Financial, co-founded by the president and his sons, started trading publicly on Monday. The launch added some $5 billion to the family’s wealth, at least on paper.
INSKEEP: NPR financial correspondent Maria Aspan has been following this story. Maria, good morning.
MARIA ASPAN, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: Stating the obvious, $5 billion sounds like a lot. But we said $5 billion on paper. How is this currency doing?
ASPAN: Indeed. President Trump and his family own a big stake in World Liberty Financial. But other than the theoretical boost to their wealth, the first few days of trading kind of fell flat. The new World Liberty Financial crypto tokens are currently trading at about 23 cents, which is down from the high of over 30 cents after their launch on Monday. The company has also said that Trump and his sons are barred from selling their own tokens for the time being. So there’s not an immediate payday for the Trumps. And even if they could sell, them selling would probably drive down the price even more. All of that said, this launch sure does create more pathways for them to profit from the crypto industry, which, of course, President Trump has embraced wholeheartedly.
INSKEEP: So they’ve created this currency with Trump’s name on it. The family holds a lot of the currency. So if people outside buy the other currency, that drives up the price and drives up their wealth. I get that. What does it matter that the president of the United States went into the crypto business while also promoting that very same business as president of the United States?
ASPAN: Well, as you point out, it underlines the extraordinary degree to which President Trump and his family are using the Oval Office to profit personally and how much the crypto industry is really at the center of that. I mean, you may recall, Steve, that just a few years ago, Trump called crypto a scam. Now he’s embraced it. He’s vowed to make the United States the crypto capital of the world. He’s loaded up his administration with crypto-friendly regulators, and he started crypto businesses, so he’s in a position to profit from these more relaxed rules coming out of his government. All of this is why many government ethics and financial experts have raised alarms about conflicts of interest. I spoke about this with Ross Delston, who’s a lawyer and a former banking regulator at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
ROSS DELSTON: Is this the kind of money that somebody wanting to influence the president, become friends with the president would want to invest in? Absolutely. It used to be you had to join Mar-a-Lago. This is much more fun. You don’t even have to get out of bed in the morning.
ASPAN: Delston also pointed out how upfront Trump is being about his business interests, despite all the concerns about conflicts of interest. The White House has repeatedly said there are no such conflicts of interest, which a spokesperson again told NPR last night.
INSKEEP: Got it. Are there any limits in place on what the president does?
ASPAN: As Delston told me, there is really no federal regulator who seems likely to call Trump out on any of this because he controls them. Under the Biden administration, deals like this would have drawn a lot of scrutiny from regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission. But now the president has appointed a lot of crypto-friendly people to his administration. And, Steve, it’s worth pointing out that it was that tougher approach at the SEC that gave Trump an opportunity to court the crypto vote and their money, and now he’s in the position to shape the rules, or the lack of rules, for a business where he and his family stand to profit.
INSKEEP: NPR’s Maria Aspan. Thanks for the reporting.
ASPAN: Thank you.
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