The organizers at World Liberty did not previously allow the token to be publicly traded, so after the 35,000 original buyers purchased about $550 million worth of the tokens in the spring, they were barred from easily selling them. In July, organizers voted to lift that restriction, setting the stage for the token’s trading debut on Monday.

The Trump family controls about 22.5 billion of the $WLFI tokens, and they suggested Monday afternoon that their holdings were worth about $5 billion.

At 8 a.m. Monday, the price of the token was 20 cents and surged within five minutes to about 40 cents. The token’s value then rapidly fell to about 22 cents as of 5 p.m., lower than expected.

World Liberty had arranged an unusual deal with a Nasdaq-traded company called Alt5 Sigma Corporation, according to the New York Times. In August, Alt5 announced Zach Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff, who is working in the Trump administration, had become its chairman, and the president’s son Eric Trump became a member of the company’s board of directors. The move put out two senior executives from World Liberty in powerful positions at Alt5.

Alt5 previously disclosed that it planned to use the $1.5 billion it had raised as part of that shift to buy World Liberty’s token when it began trading on Monday. It was this agreement that allowed the Trump family to profit from World Liberty despite its lackluster launch.

Trump, who has promoted World Liberty and $TRUMP memecoin in the past, did not comment on the trading launch on Monday. Trump helped launch World Liberty a year ago while vowing to make “America Great Again, this time with crypto,” during his 2024 campaign.

As president, Trump has slashed cryptocurrency regulations and appointed crypto allies to lead watchdog agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, which would typically be the agency to investigate the Alt5 agreement with World Liberty.

HOUSE PASSES ‘CRYPTO WEEK’ LEGISLATION AFTER REPUBLICAN REVOLT

Senate Democrats introduced legislation in May aimed at curbing alleged cryptocurrency-related corruption. The legislation would ban “the President, Vice President, Senior Executive Branch Officials, Members of Congress, and their immediate families from financially benefiting from issuing, endorsing, or sponsoring crypto assets, such as meme coins and stablecoins.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt maintained that “neither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.”