What to expect at Trumps’ World Liberty Forum despite $2tn market meltdown and Democrat probes

Donald Trump’s family is about to put on a show for the crypto industry.

While the US president is busy steamrolling into his second year in office with a slew of new policies, his family’s crypto venture is drawing a star-studded crowd to an event at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, on February 18.

The lineup of speakers includes the CEOs of Coinbase, BitGo, Franklin Templeton and Goldman Sachs, as well as the president of FIFA, rapper Nicki Minaj, celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary, and a slew of elected officials and regulators.

They’ll be joined by a “select group of 300 global leaders,” according to World Liberty Financial.

The goal?

To define “what the next century of American innovation, leadership, and economic influence will look like,” according to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s firstborn and co-founder of the crypto company.

The World Liberty Forum is the Trump family’s latest crypto initiative.

Over the past year, the company has announced plans to launch a foreign exchange and remittance platform, created a digital asset treasury, and applied for a US federal banking license.

The event’s timing is notable.

It comes as the president’s political rivals are ramping up the pressure on the White House regarding his family’s crypto deals.

At the same time, the 79-year-old is seemingly losing support among crypto industry insiders who are disappointed with the results of his first year in office.

What’s World Liberty Financial?

World Liberty Financial was founded in 2024. It is at the centre of the Trump family’s crypto empire. The company positions itself as a decentralised finance platform and stablecoin issuer, serving as a bridge between traditional finance and crypto.

Co-founders include presidential sons Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Barron Trump, as well as Zach and Alex Witkoff, sons of the president’s foreign policy advisor Steve Witkoff.

Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump are both co-founders emeritus, according to the company‘s website.

The venture issues USD1, a dollar-pegged stablecoin backed by US Treasuries and cash equivalents.

Since its launch, the USD1 stablecoin has become the fifth-largest stablecoin by circulation, with $5 billion in circulation, according to DefiLlama data.

Yet, the project has also drawn ire from investors.

Fans who poured $550 million into buying the WLFI token, issued by World Liberty Financial, have been left disappointed after realising they’re unable to sell the tokens.

And while they’ve been unable to offload the tokens, they’ve seen the price tumble 69% below its peak.

World Liberty Financial has released 20% of the tokens so far and has promised a vote among holders on when the rest will be made available. That vote hasn’t materialised yet.

Political attacks

The Trump family’s crypto dealings have also opened up attack lines for his political opponents.

Over the past year, Democrats have raised concerns about Donald Trump’s crypto dealings.

On Friday, US Democratic Party Senators Elizabeth Warren and Andy Kim fired off the latest salvo in their campaign by issuing a formal letter to Scott Bessent, the US Secretary of the Treasury.

In it, they called for a probe into World Liberty Financial on national security grounds over a reported $500 million equity stake in the firm linked to the United Arab Emirates.

They cited a Wall Street Journal report that say the deal was signed four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration and saw the UAE firm buy a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial.

The letter sets a March deadline to respond.

It follows from a November attack when Democrats on the Judiciary Committee accused the president of corruption, saying that his family’s crypto ventures “leveraged his office to make himself a crypto billionaire.”

In November, a 60 Minutes investigation linked a $2 billion investment deal between Binance and Abu Dhabi’s MGX to Trump’s presidential pardon for the exchange’s co-founder Changpeng Zhao.

Critics link the deal, which was conducted with USD1, to the pardon.

In December, Binance launched a programme to promote the use of USD1. It offered up to 20% yield on USD1 holdings of up to $50,000.

Binance custodies an overwhelming 92% of the USD1 supply, according to blockchain intelligence platform Arkham.

Zhao denied allegations of wrongdoing in a recent podcast.

“I didn’t do much,” Zhao replied to questions about what he did to get the pardon. “I didn’t do anything.”

The White House has also consistently dismissed accusations of wrongdoing.

“The President has no involvement in business deals that would implicate his constitutional responsibilities,” White House counsel David Warrington told DL News.

When asked, White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly repeated to DL News that “President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest.”

‘Bad for the industry’

World Liberty Financial is far from the Trump family’s only crypto-related project.

Trump-linked projects include everything from non-fungible tokens to Bitcoin treasury plays, with mixed results. The president’s official memecoin and the one associated with First Lady Melania Trump are down 95% and 99% since their all-time highs.

Pundits have criticised the Trump-linked memecoins.

“This obviously gives a clear green light that any crime and attention-grabbing schema is now legal,” Ivan, a pseudonymous co-founder of GearBox Protocol and admin of DeFi research group Lobster DAO, told DL News in January 2025, days after the memecoins were launched.

At the time, businessman Anthony Scaramucci, who served as Trump’s own White House communications director in 2017, was equally doubtful, branding them as “as bad for the industry.”

In the year since, rumblings among the crypto community have grown louder.

‘Upbeat’ for Mar-a-lago

Donald Trump came out in support of the crypto industry during his 2024 campaign. He promised to make the US the crypto capital of the world. In return, the industry drove $18 million into his inauguration in January 2025.

In office, the president has repaid the support by issuing pro-industry executive orders, pardoning influential industry players, backing light-touch regulations, and signing a landmark stablecoin bill into law.

Those initiatives helped drive Bitcoin to a record high of over $126,000 in October, with the rest of the crypto market surging in tandem.

However, uncertainties caused by the president’s foreign policies — including threats to punish trading partners with sky-high tariffs and attempts to take Greenland — have weighed on markets.

Since October, the crypto market has lost about $2 trillion, or half, of its total value.

The fact that the wipeout occurred while other assets — such as tech stocks and gold — surged has rattled crypto traders, who have cashed out in droves, thus draining liquidity from the sector.

That, combined with more crypto-friendly legislation having stalled, has seen some members of the cryptorati turn against the president.

“At the end, he was bad for crypto. Big mistake to have him as president,” crypto influencer Carl Runefelt tweeted.

Whether this backlash will carry over into the midterms this year remains to be seen.

To be sure, other crypto influencers expressed outrage when a top Democratic account appeared to mock the Bitcoin crash earlier in February, Axios reports.

It is against this backdrop that the World Liberty Forum will go ahead.

And, despite the controversies, members of the crypto community seem excited about the event.

“The industry is very upbeat about the potential of such a gathering,” Pranav Agarwal, portfolio advisor and investor at Ajna Capital, told DL News.

The event “signals the coming together of blockchain-based solutions, especially decentralised finance and stablecoins with traditional policy makers and financial powerhouses,” Agarwal said.

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Eric Johansson is DL News’ managing editor. Got a tip? Email them at lance@dlnews.com and eric@dlnews.com.