Donald Trump Jr. calls crypto the future of finance

Donald Trump Jr. said it wasn't until his father became heavily involved in politics that he realized how much his family had benefited from the traditional financial system. 

"I came from a hard asset family. That's what we did — we built, sold and held real estate — forever," Trump said. "For a long period of time, I had access to everyone in the world. I could pick up the phone and speak with any banker and get a loan almost instantly. Everything was sort of easy, and then all of a sudden we got into politics, and we made our opinions known, and you put that little 'R' next to your name, and all of the sudden that became really difficult."

Speaking to the DC Blockchain Summit virtually on Wednesday, Trump said the experience was a wake-up call. He said he "realized very quickly how much discrimination there is in the ordinary financial markets" and also began to see how inefficient traditional finance was. 

"As I started learning about crypto and blockchain, everything, you realize, wait a minute, this is the answer to all of this stuff," Trump said. "I jokingly said — I got myself in a little trouble — I jokingly said the first time I was asked this sort of question, I realized I was just at the top of the pyramid scheme. I didn't realize that. I realized that the entire financial system and the entire banking world was really one big scheme. I just had the benefit of being in the upper echelon of that."

Trump said he and his brother Eric Trump "collectively were the most subpoenaed people in the history of the United States." The experience, he said, was a "rude awakening" for a need to work outside the traditional system and it spurred talks with the World Liberty Financial co-founders.

"I was, sort of, the beneficiary of the old way of doing things, but that doesn't mean it's the best way of doing things," Trump said. "Coming from a totally different side of the space, I realized that this is the answer as far as I'm concerned. I think it's the future of our financial systems and I want to make sure that it's domiciled in America, done by Americans, with that security."

World Liberty Financial launched in October as a decentralized finance project. Co-founders Zach Folkman, Chase Herro and Zach Witkoff all spoke at the DC Blockchain Summit in person alongside Trump Jr.'s livestream. The president and his sons are all involved in the venture: Donald Trump's official title is "chief crypto advocate," Barron Trump, his youngest, is listed on the company's website as the "DeFi visionary" and Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are "Web3 ambassadors."

The company has raised more than $550 million through its two rounds of sales of its token WLFI, which includes $250 million raised in the most recent sale announced last Monday, according to the company. World Liberty Financial said the money has come from more than 85,000 investors, both American and international. The largest investor is Justin Sun, the founder of Tron.

Putting that in perspective, Charles Hoskinson, founder and CEO of IOHK, who moderated the panel, said when his company launched Cardano it had an initial distribution of 9,000. 

"It's been so much fun to watch the ecosystem grow," Hoskinson said. "You guys started with 85,000 people and it just keeps growing. … Having such a large base and being able to bring democratized liquidity and products to them is really exciting."

World Liberty Financial announced Tuesday it was releasing a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin known as USD1. The coin will be available on the ethereum and Binance Smart Chain blockchain networks and will be backed by short-term U.S. government Treasuries, U.S. dollar deposits and "other cash equivalents," according to the company.

Zach Witkoff, who is the son of Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, said at the summit Wednesday that he views stablecoins "as an integral part of not only crypto but the entire financial system."

"When we talk about stablecoins, everyone in this room knows we're talking about seamless cross-border payments that settle instantly," Witkoff said. "Like Don, I came from the hard asset world of real estate. If you buy a $100 million building, it might take two or three weeks for that wire to clear. And in that two or three weeks, stuff is happening. It's dynamic. With stablecoins, you can settle instantly and settle across borders."

Hoskinson said the crypto sphere is "experiencing a great reset" under the new administration. The World Liberty Financial co-founders agreed with the sentiment and said the next target is increasing usage.

"In 12 to 24 months, our goal is for you to be able to walk into your local bodega and buy a ham sandwich using stablecoins," Witkoff said. "I think that's really what the next evolution is — the usability of stablecoins. Right now, we can obviously use them in DeFi, we can use them in a centralized crypto environment, but in a real-world environment, there's still a little bit of a ways to go, if you will.

"We plan on leading that charge along with our partners," Witkoff said, listing Chainlink and Tron among others. "We plan on, along with our partners, really making our mark on the space and making sure stablecoins are really usable in the real world."

Ultimately, Folkman said, their aim is for USD1 to be "truly fungible with the U.S. dollar."

"We really believe that in order for stablecoins to move to this multitrillion-dollar market cap, it needs to attract centralized finance, decentralized finance and retail adoption," Folkman said. "Our goal is really to touch on all three of these things and bring it together so our stablecoin is truly fungible with the U.S. dollar."

Donald Trump Jr. agreed that utility — and making the ease of use so clear that "perhaps an average almost Boomer like myself can figure out" — is the goal.

"If we can figure out how to make it easy to use, then this is a no brainer. And I think we're there," Trump said. "We're on that cusp. We just have to demystify some of that. We have to make it so that people don't assume that you're gambling when you do this. These are real assets backed by U.S. Treasuries. It's just the same as a bank account, but without all of that extra nonsense, without that inefficiency, without the tens of thousands of people throughout the system who are making seven figures.

"If we can simplify that down, give them the utility that they're looking for — that, to me, is the keystone for making this happen and I think we're there," Trump said.