US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to be taking an even deeper dive into the digital-asset world, saying that he will unveil plans to ensure that the US will be the “crypto capital of the planet”. 

The former US president and current GOP nominee for the office wasn’t more specific in a video message on the X social media platform on Thursday. The post included a link to World Liberty Financial, a decentralised finance (DeFi) project that his sons have been promoting. While few details have been revealed, the metadata of the website describes the project as the “cutting-edge” DeFi platform that will connect users with “decentralised finance’s best tools for secure, high-yield crypto investments”. Crypto publication CoinDesk first reported the details from the site.

“This afternoon (Thursday), I am laying out my plan to ensure that the US will be the crypto capital of the planet,” Trump said in the video. 

Trump has done a complete about-face towards the asset class, which he had considered a crime-riddled scam while he was in office. Last month, he was the featured speaker at a bitcoin conference where donors were asked to pay US$844,600 for a seat in a round-table session with Trump.

Decentralised finance, or DeFi, is a sub-sector of crypto that aims to eliminate intermediaries such as banks and brokers through the use of software-driven applications. Its proponents claim DeFi projects will democratise finance. 

“They want to choke you. They want to choke you out of business,” Trump said in the video on X, without specifying who “they” are. “We are not going to let that happen.”

A regulatory crackdown on crypto has made the US a less-friendly country to build DeFi projects, advocates say. Uniswap Labs, the creator of the largest DeFi trading platform on the ethereum blockchain, said earlier this year that the US Securities and Exchange Commission has warned that it faces a potential enforcement action for operating as an unregistered exchange and broker dealer. 

The setup remains unclear of the project promoted by Eric and Donald Trump Jr. World Liberty Financial has already launched a channel on the social media platform Telegram with more than 52,000 subscribers. Telegram’s chief executive officer, Pavel Durov, was charged this week in France for complicity in the spread of sexual images of children and other crimes. 

“President Donald J Trump has just tweeted about World Liberty Financial!” The latest message from the Telegram channel wrote. “Let’s show our support and keep pushing forward together! Be DeFiant!”

On Tuesday, a fourth collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which feature images ranging from the former president in a superhero costume to holding figurative bitcoins, was launched. The NFTs sell for US$99 each. 

The former president’s CIC Digital LLC, which earned US$7.2 million through licensing his image on NFTs, held a crypto wallet with at least US$1 million in ethereum. Trump’s support of crypto has led some executives in the sector, including venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, to endorse him. 

  - Bloomberg