Impersonators have descended on a soon-to-be-announced crypto venture tied to presidential candidate Donald Trump and his family, capitalizing on gaps in information about the project to promote inauthentic crypto tokens.
Led by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., the sons of the former president, the Trumps have embarked on a campaign to promote an upcoming project—called World Liberty Financial—on social media. For the best part of a month, the family has teased the launch in cryptic posts that offer little detail.
In an X post on August 6, Eric wrote that he had “truly fallen in love with crypto.” The following day, in another post, Donald Jr. said he was “about to shake up the crypto world” and warned his followers not to “get left behind.” On August 22, in a post on Truth Social, the former president himself promoted the venture: “For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites. It’s time we take a stand—together,” wrote Trump.
But the family is yet to provide first-hand details about the purpose or functionality of World Liberty Financial. And third-party operators are taking advantage of the information vacuum.
In late August, an advertisement appeared at the bottom of the project’s Telegram channel—which has been pitched by the Trump family 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 webpage featuring an illustration of Donald Trump pulling apart his shirt at the buttons to reveal a Superman-style costume beneath with a ‘T’ logo. Visitors are promised up to $15,000 in crypto tokens and invited to “connect now your wallet [sic] and make the world great again.”
On August 29, a post to the Telegram channel for World Liberty Financial warned subscribers—of which there are now more than 200,000—away from the ad. “We have been made aware of some ads circulating on Telegram claiming to be from us, offering fake airdrops or token sales,” read the post. “We are NOT doing any airdrops or selling any tokens at this time.” But a week later, the ad remains in place, and as many as 50,000 people have subscribed to the competing Telegram channel associated with it. It is 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, wife to Eric, and Tiffany Trump, daughter of the former president, were allegedly compromised and used by the hackers to peddle another crypto token purportedly 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 analysis platform DEXTools suggests that around 2,000 people collectively purchased $1.8 million worth of the fake token.