World Liberty Financial is amassing crypto for a “strategic reserve.”The Trump-backed crypto project isn’t meant for risk-taking gamblers, co-founder says.World Liberty Financial has made headlines for a recent crypto spending spree.In December, it bought more than 4,000 AAVE tokens. On January 20, it purchased more than $90 million in wrapped Bitcoin and Ethereum. As recently as Thursday, it spent more than $400,000 on crypto issued by Ondo, one of the largest issuers of tokenized US Treasury bonds.Speaking onstage at an Ondo-hosted conference in Manhattan that day, one of World Liberty’s co-founders said the splurge isn’t just another bet on crypto.“One of the things that we’re going to launch here in the very short future is a strategic reserve,” World Liberty co-founder Chase Herro said in an atrium with an expansive view of Columbus Circle.“We put a lot of money together,” Herro continued. “The idea is that we’re going to leave this onchain, and we’re going to show commitment back to the industry that’s been so good to us.”How this stockpile will benefit the industry wasn’t clear. As of Friday, World Liberty had just $35 million in crypto, having apparently sold most of its $400 million stash just days earlier, according to data from Arkham.But its planned launch is one of the few concrete details about World Liberty, a crypto company that launched four months ago with backing from Donald Trump, who is now president.World Liberty is “leading a financial revolution by dismantling the stranglehold of traditional financial institutions,” its website says.According to news reports and the company’s website, that includes releasing a stablecoin and simplifying access to decentralised finance protocols such as Aave.Despite once being a crypto skeptic, Trump dipped his toes in the industry in 2022 when he released non-fungible tokens depicting him as a muscled superhero, a gun-bearing hunter, and other comic book-like images.He dove in headfirst in September when his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Jr, unveiled World Liberty Financial.Sales of its token, WLFI, got off to a rocky start but have since raised around $385 million.Herro shared the stage Thursday with Donald Trump Jr, who said his family embraced crypto after being shunned by bankers in the wake of his father’s first presidential campaign.“We had a hard time getting a loan,” he said. “Once that got turned off, you realize just how corrupted the system actually is.”The Ondo Summit was billed as a conference for “the biggest names in traditional finance and blockchain.” Headline speakers include executives from BlackRock, Bank of New York Mellon, and Fidelity Investments.But Trump Jr didn’t shy away from taking shots at Wall Street.“They’ve essentially had a monopoly on all of this,” he said. “There’s a lot of middlemen in there that probably have no business being there. We’re going to force efficiency even in those traditional
Sab. Feb 8th, 2025
