Copycats have jumped on a soon-to-be-announced crypto venture tied to presidential candidate Donald Trump and his family, exploiting gaps in information about the project to promote fake crypto tokens.
Led by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s sons, the Trumps have launched a social media campaign to promote an upcoming project called World Liberty Financial. For the better part of a month, the family has announced the launch in cryptic posts that offer few details.
In an X post on August 6, Eric wrote that he had “really fallen in love with crypto.” The next day, Donald Jr. said in another post that he was “about to shake up the crypto world” and warned his followers to “not be left behind.” On August 22, the former president himself promoted the venture in a post on Truth Social: “For too long, the average American has been squeezed by big banks and financial elites. It’s time we all stand together,” Trump wrote.
But the family has yet to provide any firsthand details about the purpose or functionality of World Liberty Financial. And outside operators are exploiting the information vacuum.
In late August, an ad appeared at the bottom of the project's Telegram channel, which the Trump family touted as “the ONLY [sic] place to get the official news”—promoting an inauthentic crypto token giveaway. The ad, which is still live at the time of writing, leads to an external web page featuring an illustration of Donald Trump pulling his shirt apart at the buttons to reveal a Superman-like costume underneath with a “T” logo. Visitors are promised up to $15,000 worth of crypto tokens and invited to “link your wallet now [sic] and make the world great again.”
On August 29, a message on the Telegram channel warned World Liberty Financial subscribers – of which there are now more than 200,000 – not to look at the ad. “We have been made aware of some ads circulating on Telegram claiming to be from us and offering fake airdrops or token sales,” the message read. “We are NOT doing any airdrops or token sales at this time.” But a week later, the ad is still up, and as many as 50,000 people have subscribed to the competing Telegram channel linked to it. It’s not clear how much money, if any, has been taken.
Eric Trump did not respond to questions about the inability to prevent inauthentic ads from being served through the World Liberty Financial Telegram channel. Telegram did not respond to a request for comment.
On September 3, X accounts belonging to Lara Trump, Eric’s wife, and Tiffany Trump, the former president’s daughter, were reportedly compromised and used by the hackers to sell another crypto token allegedly related to World Liberty Financial. The posts have since been deleted, but screenshots indicate they were viewed by at least 200,000 people. Data from token analytics platform DEXTools suggests that around 2,000 people collectively purchased $1.8 million worth of the fake token.
