The Trump family has reportedly reduced its stake in its main crypto venture, World Liberty Financial (WLF).
Its parent company, DT Marks DEFI LLC, quietly lowered its ownership from 60% to approximately 40% over the past couple of weeks.
Timeline of Events
According to a Forbes report, the change was found in the updated fine print on the company’s website. Donald Trump launched WLF in September 2024 at the height of his presidential campaign. The project promised a “financial revolution,” offering 25 billion of its native WLFI tokens to raise about $590 million.
To manage the venture, Trump renamed DT Tower II, which he had initially formed in 2016, into DT Marks DEFI. While he owned 100% of the original company, the new structure saw 30% of the shares transferred to family members, believed to be his sons Don Jr., Eric, and Barron, leaving him with a 70% stake.
In July 2024, three new companies were registered in Delaware under the names DJT Jr DEFI LLC, ET DEFI LLC, and BWT DEFI LLC, plainly the initials of the three Trump brothers. By the end of December, a financial disclosure report showed that the new entity held a 75% stake in WLF.
This changed in early January. Just before the president’s inauguration, the family sold more than $200 million worth of tokens, with the project’s website subsequently showing that DT Marks’ ownership had dropped to around 60%.
The Trumps also onboarded a new partner, controversial Tron founder Justin Sun, who paid $75 million to join the First Family’s crypto business. In March, the DeFi project launched the USD1 stablecoin, with Abu Dhabi-based investment giant MGX later confirming that the dollar-pegged crypto asset would be used to settle its $2 billion purchase of a minority stake in Binance.
A Quiet Sale?
However, with U.S. lawmakers discussing stablecoin legislation, including the GENIUS Act, several Democrats raised the alarm over a possible conflict of interest and the ethics of mixing business and presidential power.
There were also concerns that Sun’s $75 million buy-in into WLF may have been a means to curry favor with the president, possibly leading to the SEC pausing an investigation against the crypto entrepreneur.
Following the development, a group of opposition legislators requested all suspicious activity reports (SARs) connected to Trump. Subsequently, a court-appointed monitor overseeing his company’s finances was reportedly informed that the First Family planned to sell part of one of their firms. While the correspondence did not name the company, observers believed it to be DT Marks DEFI.
Sometime after June 8, the fine print on the WLF website was updated again. It now shows that DT Marks DEFI owns about 40% of the company. However, nothing has been said of the parties that may have taken up the 20% stake.
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