President Donald Trump's family has invested heavily in crypto ventures during Trump's second term, a move that has alarmed two analysts.
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the family's new token, WLFI, began trading and made the family $5 billion richer, which surpasses the value of the family's decades-long real estate portfolio. The token was issued by World Liberty Financial, which is controlled by his two sons, Don Jr. and Eric. World Liberty Financial was founded by Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump's chief envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Early WLFI investors could purchase coins for as little as $0.015 per coin last year, WSJ reported. The Trump family, including President Trump himself, holds about one-quarter of all of the new tokens.
Some commentators described the launch as a "rug pull," where a crypto project's creators abscond with investors' funds shortly after it launches. The price of WLFI crashed from around $0.32 to less than $0.22 within hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett discussed the launch on a new episode of "Pod Save America" on YouTube.
Favreau described the venture as a "crypto grift."
"This is just a straight-up f------ scam," Favreau said.
The Trump family has also invested in other crypto projects like a Trump memecoin and a Melania memecoin. Trump Media, the company that owns Truth Social, also buys cryptocurrencies, according to WSJ.
Watch the entire episode below or by clicking here.