The only crypto platform "supported" sponsored by Donald J. Trump.
Oh oh, watch out. Taking on the big banks, but for now, a logo. Support to be a future fleshed out thing?
Nice words, World, Liberty and Financial. A solid feel to each. So, who's the genius behind the Trump family's ownership and endorsement? Bloomberg, seeming skeptical, reports:
Chase Herro has sold a lot of things in his career. Weed. Weight-loss “colon cleanses.” A $149-a-month get-rich-quick class. Now he’s [...] the dealmaker behind World Liberty Financial, the crypto project that Donald Trump and his two older sons have been promoting on social media in recent weeks, according to two people involved with the project.
Two anonymous sources, here we go and will the sledding be rough -
Herro's long-time business partner Zachary Folkman is also playing a key role. While few details about World Liberty have been released, Eric Trump said that the startup will promote “financial independence” and Donald Trump Jr. said it will “make finance great again.” Former President Trump himself posted a video saying he'd announce the details on Sept. 16. “We’re embracing the future with crypto and leaving the slow and outdated big banks behind,” Trump said.
That's today! Will there be detail about "slow and outdated banks?" Detail about much else? Promoter's share, public share? Or is it only an indirect opening spiel cooked up by Trump and a golfing partner at the fifth hole? Good questions? Continuing -
Yet Herro, a fast-talking 39-year-old who shows off his fancy cars and private-jet rides on social media, is an unknown in the crypto world.
Uh - - -
More than a dozen prominent digital-asset investors said in interviews they had never heard of him. The only crypto project with which he was publicly affiliated attracted only a few million dollars and suffered a devastating hack. A token he promoted on influencer Logan Paul’s podcast dropped 96% afterward. In one speech in 2018, he called himself “the dirtbag of the internet” and said that regulators should “kick s---heads like me out.”
Uh - - -
Bloomberg News sent detailed questions to a World Liberty email address. “We all see the picture you're trying to paint here and consider it at best grossly inaccurate,” a man named Jim Redner replied. “We're confident that our results will speak for themselves.” Redner said he was not a spokesperson for the company and was "just answering emails.” Herro, Folkman and the Trump presidential campaign didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
Uh - - - Yeah. I bet they used the email address on that opening screen shot (which was all I could open at the site https://www.worldlibertyfinancial.com/ ).
An adventure in the making, awaiting nuts and bolts detail? A start. A "trust me."
That's asking ...
Bloomberg continues -
Herro was introduced to the Trumps by Steve Witkoff, a real-estate developer and longtime supporter of the former president, after first meeting one of Witkoff’s sons, according to one of the people involved with the project.
That's the guy Trump was on the golf course at Mar a Lago, Florida, over the weekend, when the Secret Service flushed a Ukraine-loving shooter out of the weeds. Not that such a context helps understanding things, but it is what it is - Days before Trump was to announce the adventure, putting finishing touches on things, at the fifth hole?
Seems deeper planning might be better, but perhaps celebrating, you know, confident and all - Bloomberg's report continues -
When they met, [Trump and Witkoff?] Trump was reconsidering his stance on crypto. He’d once called Bitcoin a “scam against the dollar,” but in late 2022 he licensed his image for a series of nonfungible tokens – essentially, digital trading cards – featuring cartoon images of a muscular Trump. Then in July, after Bitcoin advocates raised what they said was $25 million for his campaign, Trump flew to Nashville to speak at a Bitcoin conference, where he promised to loosen regulations on the industry and create a strategic national stockpile of the cryptocurrency.
-- and the Mexican will pay for it? Bloomberg's opening image - Music City Center on a gloomy day, featured speaker of the day the sole point of light -
“The United States will be the crypto capital of the planet,” Trump said in the speech.
"Crypto capital of the planet." Will that be like seat of the NFL prosperous, or a thing needing to be made great, again? While keynoting the crypto confab -
At the same time, Trump’s sons were getting curious about the industry.
As an adventure with a pecuniary possibility, or general curiosity; you figure.
At the Nashville conference, Donald Trump Jr. appeared at an event sponsored by a little-known token called “Make America Great Again, Again,” though he said he had no affiliation with the project. And in June, Martin Shkreli, the former hedge-fund manager who served years in prison for securities fraud, said that he’d been talking with Barron Trump about starting another Trump cryptocurrency. Shkreli declined to comment.
Herro, who usually spells his name as “Chase Hero” with one “r” online, seemed like a better partner [better than Shekreli, faint priase.] He was affiliated with Dough Finance, a so-called decentralized-finance protocol which promised to allow users to borrow and lend crypto without intermediaries.
Without the burden of intermediaries, without checks and balances, what?
The two [anon. source] people involved with World Liberty insisted that Herro is a billionaire with a track record of crypto success. But Dough Finance only attracted $3.2 million in total activity, a tiny amount for the crypto industry, according to data provider DefiLlama. In July, it was hacked for about $2 million and it appears to be inactive now. An email to Dough Finance seeking comment was not returned.
Well, Bloomberg writers, for whatever reasons, felt it best to repeat themselves about a hack and malaise . . ,
Diversifying your portfolio with crypto is an option, (all eggs in that basket not being sound), but is this a "Wait and see" thing, or a ground floor opportunity to fly like that logo bird? It is a smooth designed logo. You have to admit that.
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