Inside Trump’s Plan to Launch a Digital Dollar at World Liberty Financial

America has a long tradition of putting our presidents on our currency, but never in U.S. history has a president thought to launch his own.

That is, until President Donald Trump and his family decided to wade into exactly that with the launch of World Liberty Financial and the USD1 stablecoin.

But as the Trumps’ digital dollar surges past a $2.5 billion market cap and becomes the fastest-growing stablecoin in history, its success is accelerating the need to answer new questions about what it could mean for America.

On the one hand, it's an unprecedented use of the office by a sitting president. On the other hand, China rolling out its own digital yuan is intensifying a clash between the top two economic powers on the global stage and presenting a very real risk to the dollar’s reserve status around the world.

As America’s first community-owned crypto media outlet, Coinage has been surprised at the absence of substantial debate on the topic — perhaps due to a lack of objective explainers on the Trumps’ digital dollar. As such, we worked through this piece with our members of various political leanings to explore World Liberty Financial and USD1 — and the pros and cons for what it could mean for America — while aiming to lay out the implications for you to make the judgement call yourself.

Understanding The Trumps’ Digital Dollar

Stablecoins can be intimidating, but they are relatively straightforward. They are just digital representations of real currency. And after President Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law this summer, their job to represent $1 onchain may have gotten even simpler.

Stablecoin issuers like Tether, Circle, or the project behind the Trumps’ USD1 all essentially do the same thing: They issue coins corresponding to the dollars they hold in custody. They profit by collecting interest on the assets they hold as collateral against the stablecoins they issue, and given that interest rates are relatively high at more than 4% right now, that can add up quickly.

For example, the industry leader, Tether, which issues the USDT stablecoin, made $13 billion in profits last year alone. When Coinage interviewed Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino earlier this year, he called the profits “unthinkable.”

“We started as a small company, like a couple Italian guys and we exceeded our expectations,” he said. “We made an enormous amount of profits that are almost unthinkable.”

But it took Ardoino and Tether years of effort to build up its base as the market leader, now with more than $160 billion worth of USDT in circulation. In fact, it took Tether four years after launching in 2014 to cross the $2 billion mark.

The Trumps’ digital dollar USD1 has done that in under 90 days.

The Beginnings of USD1

Since its inception, World Liberty Financial has always been unique. President Trump’s sons had been floating the idea of working on a decentralized finance project even before Donald Trump won re-election. Built as a twist on the popular DeFi platform Aave, World Liberty Financial hadn’t received immediate fanfare when it was first unveiled.

On a September 16 2024 X stream from Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump joined his sons before the official unveiling of what World Liberty Financial was to become. By October, the project had unveiled plans to raise $300 million in a token sale that got off to a sluggish start. But after defeating Kamala Harris in the general election, things started to accelerate. The World Liberty Financial site had always boasted they were the only DeFi project to be “inspired by Donald J. Trump,” but now they had something no one else had: The President of the United States.

By March, World Liberty Financial had closed its $WLFI token raise, which brought in more than $550 million. The World Liberty team then shifted its focus to working through pitching integrations with various crypto projects to get their tokens featured on the platform. Blockworks reported that World Liberty’s team was seeking $10 million token swap deals from various projects. But by the time Congress got around to passing the GENIUS Act, which codified rules for stablecoins, the World Liberty site had already changed its focus. The homepage was now promoting World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin.

In June, World Liberty Financial airdropped 47 USD1 coins to people who had participated in its earlier token sale — a nod to Trump as the 47th President of the United States. As President Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July, USD1 had already broken into the top 50 stablecoins by market cap – surpassing even the $1.3 billion mark held by PayPal’s stablecoin.

The Controversial Rise of USD1

World Liberty Financial isn’t just unique in being “inspired by Donald J. Trump.” It’s also unique in counting both Trump sons as co-founders, along with Zach and Alex Witkoff, the sons of Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.

The Witkoffs and the Trumps both share ownership stakes in World Liberty Financial between separate entities. At one point, the Trumps had commanded as much as 60% ownership over the project, with a clause to collect 75% of net-revenues from coin sales. Coinage contacted World Liberty Financial for updated ownership figures for this story, but a spokesperson for the company could not be reached for comment.

Documenting the web of ownership around World Liberty Financial has only gotten more complicated. An attempt by crypto researcher Molly White to map it all out reveals a bona fide labyrinth. And in August, things only got harder after a reverse merger gave rise to a new publicly traded digital asset treasury company that has set out to buy World Liberty’s $WLFI token. As part of the $1.5 billion deal to scoop up $WLFI tokens, the company, Alt5 Sigma, also announced Zach Witkoff was joining as Chairman, along with Eric Trump and fellow World Liberty Financial co-founder Zak Folkman who joined the board.

If that all sounds confusing, don’t worry. At least you’re not having to digest all of this information in real time on live television – as was the case for CNBC anchor Joe Kernen, who appeared so flabbergasted in the interview with Folkman and Witkoff last month he appeared to mix up USD1 and Tether’s USDT. An equally confused Andrew Ross Sorkin asked them to slow down as Folkman explained things piecemeal.

“I just want to make sure that people are clear that this transaction is actually about Alt5 Sigma acquiring the WLFI token, which is the governance token behind World Liberty Financial, which is different from our stablecoin USD1, which is the fastest growing stablecoin of all time and also GENIUS Act compliant,” he said.

After revealing in the interview that this publicly traded company essentially gives the same two families yet another way to profit off of the growing adoption of USD1, Witkoff also defended USD1 as different from the other stablecoins on the market.

“It’s currently the fastest growing stablecoin in the world,” he said. “We’ve reached $2.2 billion in market cap in just under 90 days.”

Neither of CNBC’s anchors asked exactly how they did that.

Is USD1 Leveraging The Presidency?

Currently, nearly 90% of USD1’s market cap is a result of one single deal.

Onstage at Token2049 in Dubai, Eric Trump and Zach Witkoff revealed that the Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX had chosen to use $2 billion worth of USD1 to close its investment in Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.

“As for the $2 billion, we are excited to announce today USD1 has been selected as the official stablecoin to close MGX's $2 billion investment in Binance,” Witkoff said. “We thank MGX and Binance for their trust in us and we think it’s only the beginning.” Soon after, a reporter asked President Trump about how that deal came about.

“I don’t know anything about it. I really don’t know anything about it,” President Trump said, adding that he’s a believer in crypto. “If we’re not going to do it, China’s going to do it.”

It was a nice way of dodging the question, because at that point, USD1 was essentially an untested, unadopted stablecoin at a market cap that sat well below anything that would even have it be on anyone’s radar. It seemed like a very fair question to ask why USD1 would be used instead of Tether or Circle’s USDC, the two market leaders.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao had a very different take. On X, Zhao derided the reporter’s question as “wrong, vague and misleading.”

“This was an investment deal between an investor and a private company in Abu Dhabi,” CZ tweeted. “A transaction can be done in any currency, bitcoin, AED, USD, or USD1. This is mostly at the choice of the payer. The receiver can convert it to any other currency after receiving it.”

But that still wouldn’t necessarily answer the question of why either side would opt to settle the deal with USD1. Coinage reached out to CZ and Binance for comment, but we also didn’t immediately hear back.

It’s worth noting, however, that CZ served four months in U.S. prison after pleading guilty to money laundering violations at Binance. Since his release, CZ has not been shy about joining the list of other crypto founders who have been able to receive pardons from President Trump. 

By accepting $2 billion in USD1 as the chosen currency in the deal, not only has Binance given World Liberty Financial a free ticket to boast becoming “the fastest-growing stablecoin in history,” but that $2 billion also allows World Liberty Financial to collect tens of millions of dollars in direct profits off the interest they can now collect.

So far, CZ has not secured a pardon.

What USD1 Means for America

President Trump’s consistent positioning on why he’s flipped so pro-crypto is as interesting as Eric Trump’s reasoning for why he’s proud of USD1.

“You can buy USD1 and so you’re no longer at the mercy of a government that you might not trust,” he said onstage in Dubai in front of an international audience. “And that’s a beautiful thing for humanity about USD1 and what we’re doing.”

If we didn’t note that quote was delivered in front of an international audience, it might seem weird to be coming from the son of the sitting President of the United States. But that’s the important thing to remember about stablecoins — they mean entirely different things to people outside the U.S. than they do to Americans.

To Americans, stablecoins represent a digital alternative to something we already enjoy unfettered access to: dollars that earn interest in a bank. But abroad, in a country like Argentina, dollars represent salvation from hyperinflation. And for Argentinians, who don’t have the same access to dollars, stablecoins represent a path to that salvation. It might not be surprising to note that Argentina currently sits as one of the world’s leading countries when it comes to adoption of stablecoins and crypto. (Perhaps one reason President Milei launched his own memecoin after Trump, with a team that had ties to Melania’s own memecoin.)

But what if Argentinians didn’t turn to digital dollars to escape inflation? What if they turned to China’s digital yuan instead? Why choose one over the other?

One crucial aspect might be how readily accepted one currency may be over the other when you look to spend it in another transaction. And in that regard on the global stage, the dollar has a serious lead. As of June, the yuan only accounts for about 3% of use as a global payment currency, whereas the dollar boasts a share closer to 47%. And s​tablecoins backed by the dollar currently dominate by an even wider margin, making up more than 99% of the global stablecoin market, according to figures from the Bank for International Settlements.

As dollar-backed stablecoins continue to be adopted, stablecoin issuers are continuing to gobble up U.S. treasuries at an amazing pace. Last quarter, Tether bought more U.S. debt than the entire country of Brazil.

Given Trump’s isolationist policies, having other private or public companies as buyers of U.S. debt, or partners in distributing access to dollars abroad, could become politically necessary.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean pushing a stablecoin that he or his family has a financial stake in may be a positive for the country, as many – even within crypto circles – are starting to point out.

Former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo, who has earned the title “Crypto Dad” for his pro-crypto stances in the past, was cautious in offering an opinion on Trump’s personal crypto endeavors, but noted the detriment of conflicts of interest.

“I'll just give you my own personal experience when I was Chairman of the CFTC,” he told us. “My own personal ethos is that if you are out there, certainly as a rule maker or overseeing rule makers, I think it's better to have clean hands.”

Trump’s former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci went a bit further.

“According to the watchdogs, he's made $3.4 billion since he started the presidency the second time. I don't know if that's good for the country,” he told Coinage, citing a New Yorker piece that tallied Trump's business dealings. “I would actually say it less passive aggressive and say that's bad for the country.”

Is USD1 A Good Thing for America?

America’s battle for Democracy didn’t end with its victory over Great Britain in 1783. The founding fathers spent years in the aftermath crafting rules and designs that would prevent a backslide into tyranny. One of the most discussed topics was how to manage America's money.

Without delving too far into the history, the backdrop of the debate was a constant fear of centralizing too much power in any one single branch. The Constitution’s so-called Coinage Clause is decidedly clear in Article I Section 8, which grants Congress, not the Executive branch, the power to “coin money.” The Emoluments Clauses are also equally clear that no President is permitted to profit from the office, whether via gifts foreign or domestic. (The fact that the Trump and Melania memecoin launches happened right before Trump entered office is likely not a coincidence. The stablecoin doesn’t enjoy the same defense.)

But perhaps even more apropos would be highlighting why it took nearly a century after 1776 for presidents to begin appearing on American currency.

George Washington declined when first offered the honor. Thomas Jefferson refused as well. As the Smithsonian notes, the framers were unanimous that presidential imagery on money smacked too much of monarchy.

And James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, went further still. In Federalist No. 48 he warned:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands… may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Perhaps that’s the backdrop against which USD1 must be judged. As we said from the beginning, we won’t answer that question for you. But America’s founders certainly left us a warning.

The Trumps' stablecoin is already on a record ascent. With more than three years left for President Trump to serve out his second term, that trajectory is not expected to slow. It's fairly clear how to calculate the returns for themselves. It's less clear to know at what costs to America.

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