Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures at the Bitcoin 2024 event in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., July 27, 2024.
Kevin Wurm | Reuters
Former president Donald Trump on Thursday promoted a soon-to-launch, Trump Organization crypto platform, “The DeFiant Ones” to his 7.5 million followers on Truth Social.
“For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites,” Trump wrote. “It’s time we take a stand — together.”
The post marks the first time the Republican nominee for president has used his personal platform to promote the as yet unactivated digital bank. Within minutes, his son Donald Trump Jr., shared the post with his 12 million X followers.
Trump’s post includes a link to a Telegram channel called “The DeFiant Ones,” which had approximately 29,000 followers as of Thursday morning, and climbing.
An Aug. 15 post describes the channel as “the only official Telegram channel for the Trump DeFi project” which building “the future of finance.”
Trump’s sons Eric Trump and and Donald Jr. have spent weeks teasing the forthcoming platform, which Eric recently described as “digital real estate.”
“It’s equitable. It’s collateral anyone can get access to and do so instantly,” Eric told The New York Post earlier this month. “I don’t know if people realize what a shake up that is for the world of banking and finance. I hope we can help change that.”
The Trump brothers have also promoted the project with posts declaring that “decentralized finance is the future” and asking people to “stay tuned for a big announcement.”
The mention of digital real estate could be a reference to selling digitized versions of assets in the metaverse, a concept which peaked in popularity in 2021 during the last bull market cycle in crypto.
Digitized real estate could also mean that the project would tokenize real-world assets.
The timing of the project coincides with the homestretch of Trump’s presidential campaign. The former president is working to regain momentum in the race against Vice President Kamala Harris.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
