While Donald Trump grapples with the problematic introduction of his latest cryptocurrency, World Liberty Financial, fraudulent ventures are profiting from the chaos.
Between August 29 and late Monday night, Trump had only revealed the name of his project. This ambiguous announcement allowed the imagination to run wild and paved the way for counterfeit schemes that eagerly ensnared unsuspecting investors and their funds.
From September 3 until at least noon on September 17 — the day after Trump’s launch — a fraudulent website ranked ninth in Google’s search results for ‘World Liberty Financial.’ The site advertised a bogus governance token, WL, which has regrettably traded over $3 million since its creation.
A bewildering range of counterfeit governance tokens has appeared for World Liberty Financial, which has yet to release an official version. A new — and entirely fake — WLFI on Binance Smart Chain saw trading exceed $50 million within 24 hours following Trump’s announcement of the genuine WLFI to be launched at an unspecified future date.
A counterfeit WLFI on Ethereum has seen trades exceeding $7 million over the last three days, while another sham on Solana traded nearly $1 million. On Coinbase’s Base, another fake token traded for over $60,000.
Read more: Who is behind World Liberty Financial, Trump’s new crypto?
It’s important to note that transaction volumes do not always indicate financial losses. Wash trading and self-dealing are widespread across cryptocurrency exchanges, and many of these figures could involve insiders cycling through money to fabricate the illusion of trading activity or reliability.
Determining the amount of money defrauded by the creators of these fake projects is nearly impossible.
Further fake World Liberty Financial scams
World Liberty Financial has established a Telegram channel, but numerous impersonator channels attracted thousands of unwitting participants. One fraudster managed to gather over 70,000 followers by promising giveaways amounting to $15,000. Inside this counterfeit channel, administrators encouraged members to connect their Metamask wallets and grant permissions that facilitated the draining of their funds.
Additionally, hackers hijacked the X (formerly Twitter) accounts of Trump family members to promote fake cryptocurrency giveaways in the two weeks leading up to the launch of World Liberty Financial.
Read more: The entire DJT token drama in one article
Even before Trump unveiled his initiative, seasoned con artists were already exploiting his name for their schemes. Previously incarcerated felon Martin Shkreli claimed to have gained the endorsement of Trump’s son Barron for a meme coin called DJT.
Unfortunately, the counterfeit coin traded for hundreds of millions of dollars while plummeting 97% from its peak.
In summary, even before Trump’s crypto venture officially launched, the confusion has led to thousands already incurring financial losses. Even staunchly pro-Trump news outlet Fox News expressed disappointment regarding Trump’s World Liberty Financial launch. On Monday, they criticized the initiative for its “thin” and “uneven rollout.” Wired described the rollout as “meandering” and “lacking details.”
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