A day after an apparent assassination attempt on him, Donald Trump, the former president and Republican presidential candidate appeared on a livestream on X to champion his latest business venture: cryptocurrencies.
“Crypto is one of those things we have to do,” Trump said.
“Whether we like it or not, I have to do it,” said Trump, earlier an ardent crypto skeptic who decried Bitcoin as a “scam.”
The business venture launch raised many eyebrows in political and business circles, as it’s unusual for a presidential candidate to embark on a new business just weeks before election day, The New York Times reported.
Trump appeared on the livestream along with his collaborators, including a family friend, some of Trump’s sons and a pair of little-known crypto enthusiasts with no experience running a high-profile business.
Together, they were rolling out World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that has raised concerns about Trump’s conflicts of interest and alarmed some of his most vocal supporters in the industry, the NYT report said.
Trump has promoted the project since August, but its exact purpose remains unclear.
On the livestream, he did not address the business directly, deferring to his partners.
One of them has described himself as “the dirtbag of the internet”, while another used to teach classes on how to seduce women.
Throughout his political career, Trump has engaged in business dealings that government ethics experts have flagged as problematic.
He is the majority owner of Trump Media & Technology Group, the publicly traded parent company of his social media platform Truth Social, which accounts for some $2 billion of his personal wealth.
Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said that if Trump is elected, his involvement in the crypto venture would create serious conflicts of interest.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has argued that virtually all cryptocurrencies are unregistered securities and ought to be regulated like stocks traded on Wall Street.
Trump “would be able to push regulatory agencies to favor businesses he is involved in,” Ms. Brian said.
Ethics experts have said that his ownership of the social media company raises similar issues.
NYT said representatives for the Trump Organization and World Liberty Financial did not respond to its requests for comment.
For years, Trump was a crypto skeptic who decried Bitcoin as a “scam”, but on the campaign trail, he has morphed into a vocal supporter, speaking at a popular industry conference and drawing donations from crypto executives.
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