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Bitcoin

Trump's Coin Sale Misses Early Targets As Crypto Project's Website Crashes (cnbc.com) 136

Posted by BeauHD from the rough-start dept.
Donald Trump's new crypto project, World Liberty Financial, had a rocky start today with frequent website outages during its token sale. According to CNBC, only about 4% of registered investors have bought tokens, and the project sold less than 3% of the 20 billion tokens available. From the report: WLF's website suffered regular and lengthy outages for much of the morning and early afternoon, contributing to a limited number of sales. Only about 4,300 unique walled addresses hold the token as of Tuesday afternoon, according to blockchain data tracked by Etherscan, representing roughly 4% of the total number of people who registered.

The platform says it has sold more than 532 million tokens at 15 cents per token. That is less than 3% of the 20 billion tokens made available for public sale. Over the course of the day, the website frequently showed a page saying, "We are under maintenance." The glitchy launch is a potential setback to the Republican presidential nominee with just three weeks until the election. Trump and his family have been touting the project since August, branding it as "The DeFiant Ones," a play on DeFi, which is short for decentralized finance.
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Trump's Coin Sale Misses Early Targets As Crypto Project's Website Crashes More

Trump's Coin Sale Misses Early Targets As Crypto Project's Website Crashes

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  • Send me money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by caseih ( 160668 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @07:18PM (#64867541)

    Hard to believe anyone would willingly send him money which is only used to enrich himself (and possibly pay for his legal defense). This is not a campaign donation. The mind boggles.

    • Re: Send me money (Score:5, Insightful)

      by i_ate_god ( 899684 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @07:25PM (#64867559)

      It's a cult. It's no different than a tithe

      • Re: Send me money (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jhoegl ( 638955 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @07:30PM (#64867563)
        To those watching it is no coincidence that the same people who pay filthy to this person are engaged in religious worship.

        • To those watching it is no coincidence that the same people who pay filthy to this person are engaged in religious worship.

          You can say [imgur.com] that [imgur.com] again [imgur.com].

        • They do need to fix the story a bit though:

          DeFi, which is short for decentralized finance.

          That's not correct, DeFi stands for distributed fraud in the internet.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Indeed. It is people deep in delusion.

      • and there happens to be a comet around. Just sayin'

      • Re: Send me money (Score:5, Informative)

        by Holi ( 250190 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2024 @09:07AM (#64868855)

        This isn't a way for him to sucker the rubes, They cannot buy it.

        This is a way for him to get foreign bribes.

        "The tokens are not available for U.S. Persons and are only available
        for persons outside of the United States. The tokens have not been
        registered with any U.S. or other authority and may not be offered
        or sold in the United States"
        https://static.worldlibertyfin... [worldliber...ancial.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      Seems like a good way to get on good terms of potentially the next president (50%). A president that doesn't seem restrained from using power for favors.

      Also, there's the upside that it may be given some official status or some such.

      I wouldn't assume all of the purchases are fanboys.

      • Seems like a good way to get on good terms of potentially the next president (50%).
        A president that doesn't seem restrained from using power for favors.

        I can see Trump doling out favors based on how many Trump coins someone has -- like disaster relief [newsweek.com] only after learning the people voted for him.

      • Seems like a good way to get on good terms of potentially the next president (50%). A president that doesn't seem restrained from using power for favors.

        Also, there's the upside that it may be given some official status or some such.

        I wouldn't assume all of the purchases are fanboys.

        Agreed. If I was less ethical I would have bought some shares of the SPAC that bought Truth Social. Sure, the company obviously had zero value, but Trump fans are reliable suckers, and there's always the chance Trump would win and use the power of the state to direct money at his company (or even have foreign states buy advertising).

        The coin is dumb and scammy, but Trump fans will buy it if they can which creates a value in itself.

    • Re:Send me money (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ickyban ( 2713241 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @07:37PM (#64867587)
      I wouldn't be shocked if the money came from offshore foreign concerns trying to buy influence if he wins the election.
    • Its a low risk/high reward investment for cynical people. If Trump wins the presidency he will absolutely abuse every power at his disposal to enrich himself, and that almost certainly will include puffing up this stupid crypto.

      • If Trump wins the presidency he will absolutely abuse every power at his disposal to enrich himself, and that almost certainly will include puffing up this stupid crypto.

        Trump can wish all he wants for his shitcoin to go up in value, it's still up to the market to decide what it's actually worth. If most people are buying it with the intention of dumping it on the next sucker if he wins the election... Well, best not to spoil the surprise ending.

    • Hard to believe anyone would willingly send him money which is only used to enrich himself

      2016 called. [imgur.com]

    • Hard to believe anyone would willingly send him money which is only used to enrich himself (and possibly pay for his legal defense). This is not a campaign donation. The mind boggles.

      Exactly. Why should anyone contribute to his 'escape to Russia' fund, for when he loses the election, is sentenced for the crimes he's already been convicted of, and is convicted and sentenced for the rest of the indictments against him?

    • I don't think its being advertised as a campaign donation, but as a commercial product.

      But its totally a grift. All these meme-coins are. Hell I'd go as far as saying Bitcoin is, but that pyramid scheme is yet to topple, but give it time.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by hAckz0r ( 989977 )

        I don't think its being advertised as a campaign donation, but as a commercial product.

        I think the point is there is no limits on contributions because its not a political donation. You can toss as much money into the wishing well as you like. So far he has grifted over 79 million dollars from political hacks and stupid investors.

        As with anything he touches, this will fail, because he never follows up to ensure any businesses success. He just looks for ways to let other people hold the debt while he walks off with their money. For instance, who is paying for the servers with the block chain a

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Most people are stupid and ans see what they want to see, not what is. So they sent the rapist, criminal and traitor money, all the while believing he is not a rapist, criminal or traitor. About 30% in any population are apparently hardcore delusional people that cannot be reached by any means. Trump has about the same number of loyal fans. Fun historical facts: Hitler was voted into power with 33% of the votes, despite glaring warning signs and it being essentially clear what he intended. Now, Trump is no

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      From the NYT: "Three people — Elon Musk, Miriam Adelson and Dick Uihlein — put a combined $220 million into groups supporting Donald J. Trump in July, August and September."

      So Cheato is supported by billionaires.

    • I think its all a big moneylaundering scam. Just look at how the stock is behaving. Who is buying all those big blocks of it. It keeps going down and someone keeps pushing money in to it. And surprice surprice the nft the bundle that was just under the reporting limit was seemingly selling. Who in their right mind would buy those? And i dont think most of hissuporters can even figure out how to buy it. Sooo.. make your own conclusions, but i think its very shady all of it

  • I'm guessing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @07:33PM (#64867565)
    that he plans to use it to as a backchannel to get money from his rich buddies. This is spot where he should actually be careful. I doubt he understands what he's getting into, and he's surrounded himself with yes-men who won't ever tell him "no". SBF found out the hard way that doing cryptocrimes and then playing the trumpcard during the subsequent criminal trial (admit nothing, deny everything, never apologize) is a one-way ticket on the fast train to a 20 year prison sentence. No presidential immunity would protect him.

    • No presidential immunity would protect him.

      ??? Sitting Presidents definitely do have immunity, and that is Trump's plan. They can also issue pardons, which may also be his plan.

  • I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @07:41PM (#64867593)

    Can you buy this worthless bullshit with his worthless bullshit money? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/u... [nbcnews.com]

    In related news his DJT stock fell so quickly today it triggered a trading halt. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/1... [cnbc.com]

    The MAGA crowd might be so tapped out they have resorted to eating pets!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Targon ( 17348 )

      Trump wants something he can offer to the other people in prison in the hopes they won't rape him if he gives them enough of it.

  • Trading Rubles For Trump Coins? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by UncleScidhuv ( 7657782 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @07:49PM (#64867617)
    I am wondering if this is how his good friend Putin will be able to load up on USD. He can't get them at the bank anymore. Is anyone checking to see if the incoming deposits are being paid in Rubles?

  • Fake trades (Score:5, Insightful)

    by linuxguy ( 98493 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @08:02PM (#64867641) Homepage

    There has been some recent legal action against companies introducing new crypto coins and then generating fake trades to show volume and activity. It is a well known phenomenon. The dim bulbs cannot tell the difference between fake trades and real ones and jump in thinking that there is some excitement in the new coin. And then in the end are left holding the bag.

    I wouldn't be surprised if most of the trade volume for this new coin, as low as it is, is entirely fake.

  • So that's what, $80 million? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by viperidaenz ( 2515578 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @08:28PM (#64867695)

    Is this a way to circumvent campaign donation regulations?
    Foreign donations, contribution limits, declarations
    Is it all "personal contribution", as it's his own personal asset?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Targon ( 17348 )

      Citizens United offered an easy way around limitations on campaign donations. Set up a PAC, and even as the only donor to that PAC, you can now just give an unlimited amount of money to a given candidate.

  • A normal person, of reasonable intelligence, normal ego, and reasonable sanity, would just say that they had paid other people to manage this enterprise for them and that something beyond their own understanding failed. Oddly enough this lines up well with how he brushes off many of his failures, in spite of those characteristics not aligning with him at all.

    After all, Trump is of below-average intelligence, hyper-inflated ego, and far-below-average sanity. He needs to project himself to be the the hyper-intelligent, hyper-masculine, super-stable genius that he tells us he is. So he needs to take ownership of this problem, even though he doesn't understand a damned thing about it.

    Unfortunately his cult will happily accept any number of blatant contradictions in his explanation for this.

    And yes, I know who reads comments here. I know if any of our 30 remaining readers on slashdot have mod points this will be modded down into oblivion if they are reading this far into the thread. Go ahead, bring it. You can't trash my slashdot karma with just one comment.

    • After all, Trump is of below-average intelligence, hyper-inflated ego, and far-below-average sanity. He needs to project himself to be the the hyper-intelligent, hyper-masculine, super-stable genius that he tells us he is. So he needs to take ownership of this problem, even though he doesn't understand a damned thing about it.

      You are a nice person - you are being too kind.

  • Put that in your coin collection (Score:3)

    by az-saguaro ( 1231754 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @08:33PM (#64867709)

    In the good ol' days, if some agency or campaign sold tokens or commemorative coins, buying one or some for 15 cents could be a great deal, even if they were inherently worthless.

    Because - if nothing else, they could be of interest for nostalgia, to remember the times of your life, or for collectors. It is no different than getting a pin or a campaign button, or an offering from a private mint. One day, you can show your grand-kids - "I was there", or "Here's a souvenir for you from when I was young." Everybody loves such things - who doesn't have such mementos? And, if only a million or less survive in circulation, they could fetch some profit from collectors in 20 or 50 years. So, buying just one for 15 cents can be of a certain value.

    Those are tangible items that you can literally hold or pocket or frame such items.

    But, what can you do with a vaporware token on a blockchain?
    It can't have any sentimental value, no nostalgia or collector value. It' s just junk. Even for just one 15 cent purchase, it is 15 cents down the drain.

    Maybe he's just trying to earn enough money to give the dead ferret on top of his head a bath.

  • Why can't he ask Musk to ask his 200 million followers to invest?

  • Money laundering & bribing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @08:50PM (#64867739)
    that's all this is. It's a way for billionaires and foreign countries to funnel cash to Trump just in case he wins.

    Jimmy Carter (who successfully lived long enough to vote against Trump) got major shit for owning a peanut farm and now we've got this shit. What a world.

    • Jimmy Carter (who successfully lived long enough to vote against Trump) got major shit for owning a peanut farm and now we've got this shit. What a world.

      After scrolling past a whole bunch of Trump circlejerk posts and two homophobic jokes, it seems /r/conservative isn't talking about Trump's latest grift. Yep, that's how the folks who think this is okay are rationalizing it, by ignoring it.

      The concept of a presidential candidate hawking shitcoins would be absolutely hilarious if only it was confined to the realm of fiction.

      • This is exactly where we are. A guy with a 50/50 shot at the white house is hawking sh$tcoins. This is why I totally support the loper-bright decision. The current Supreme Court just tranferred a huge chunk of power away from the executive branch and handed it to themselves and congress, and hardly anyone even noticed. Theyre prepping the country to withstand another Trump presidency. Or someone like him in the future. In terms of domestic policy, the Oval Office is now barely better than a padded cell. It

        • I think you misunderstood something (Score:5, Informative)

          by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @10:22PM (#64867867)
          That ruling that overturns Chevron did not take any power away from the presidency. If anything it gave the presidency more power. What it did was it made it so every single little regulation has to be written out and spelled out in detail by Congress basically grinding the government to a halt.

          In practice when that happens the presidency steps in and takes direct action and Congress lets him do it because if they don't then the entire country falls apart.

          The reason the presidency has been gaining more and more power is because the Republicans have stonewalled everything in Congress basically abdicating their responsibilities and just plain not doing their jobs.

          But shit still needs to get done by the government so the presidency steps in and does it quasi legally.

          Congress code of course try to step in but if they do then we have a large scale collapse of the economy as important and vital government services start shutting down.

          So no loper isn't going to curtail the president's power it's actually going to expand it radically. That's before we talk about project 2025, schedule f and the immunity ruling basically making any president willing to into a king.

          The current supreme Court is completely corrupt and so long is Republicans control Congress so is Congress. This means the Republicans have two out of three branches of the government and they have made it very clear that they're not interested in democracy anymore.

          The demographic shift that Democrats and people like Oprah Winfrey have been going on about for 40 years is finally on us with baby boomers and older Gen xers aging out of voting. Without those votes the Republican party can't stay in power and they know it.

          When the people you represent no longer agree with you your choices are to convince them, change your views to match them or to stop representing them and seize absolute power. The Republican party is going for option number three.
          • Youre absolutely wrong. The end of the chevron deference means every interpretation of law is subject to court scrutiny. Its a huge reduction in executive power because so many of our laws are vague. Every gray zone decision will get frozen while the courts decide the matter. Its a massive set of handcuffs on the president.

            • You're only thinking on paper (Score:4, Insightful)

              by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2024 @09:09AM (#64868859)
              not in the real world.

              Our laws aren't vague. It's not possible for every detail of a law to be written down.

              The goal is to break our legal system. It's to make it so corporations can fight every single regulation and then do stuff like poison your drinking water and crash the economy getting you fired.

              People will demand that gets fixed, and the President will step in and start issuing executive orders. With Project 2025 and Schedule F changes + legal immunity he'll have the power to do that too. He'll rule by fiat, becoming a dictator. And the people will go along with it because their communities are breaking down.
              • Oh, for sure, a ton of safety regulations are gonna get knocked down, and a lot of new-tech financial shenanigans are probably fair game, at least for the time being. That's the bad part. Some things are going to be free-for-all, at least until congress relearns how to actually legislate.

                But, you seem to think that the executive will then step in and start issuing orders to deal with it. That simply won't happen. It can't happen. Not any more. That's the whole point of loper-bright. Without the chevron
                • and you get what exactly from that? A vague notion of freedom?

                  Again, it is not possible for Congress to write every detail into legislation. Nor should they. Delegating authority is just common sense.

                  And it will be delegated. Just now

                  Looper does nothing to stop P2025 & Schedule F. You're misunderstanding what the purpose is. A lot of those bureaucrats can stop Trump from ruling by fiat. The can hold him accountable. They're part of our system of checks and balances. Schedule F tosses all that
                  • I simply don't understand your logic.

                    Loper bright ended the power of the executive branch to interpret any gray area in the law, and explicitly placed that power in the hands of the courts. It's a mystery to me how you can possibly interpret this as an executive power grab.

                    Loper bright means that the executive branch has the power to execute the law, but only as rigidly and clearly defined. Anything beyond that is explicitly forbidden unless the courts allow it. There's no power vacuum. The power to i

          • In practice when that happens the presidency steps in and takes direct action and Congress lets him do it because if they don't then the entire country falls apart.

            There has been a strong and steady push for Fascism ever since the Civil War. It accelerated greatly in the 80s, thanks Reagan.

      • There is no forum more heavily moderated (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @10:14PM (#64867853)
        On earth then reddit's conservative forum. Seriously the Disney forums are less moderated. They only ever allow people who are on an approved list to comment on posts.

        If you want to have a genuine discussion of conservative ideas reddit's conservative forum is definitely not the place to do it. It really is just an extension of the far right of the Republican party.

        Initially that was because they had a huge problem with little Nazis coming in and saying things that would get the entire subreddit blocked for terms of service violations. Basically all the right wing forums on Reddit converged onto the conservative forum because the other forms had been banned for a combination of racism, homophobia and literal neo-Nazis. When it comes to that sort of crap you have to come down on it like a ton of breaks or your entire website gets a reputation for being a Nazi bar.

        Later once everyone knew the right wingers were all in one place people would go into the forum and do one of two things. The first was just making fun of right-wingers for the crazy conspiracy bullshit they believe, that of course gets you banned and it became a game to see how quickly you could get banned from the conservative forum.

        The second was anyone who was critical of Donald Trump and the right wing extremist push coming from the Republican party. There were plenty of Republicans who didn't appreciate Donald Trump taking over the party after all.

        It's kind of funny that the people who go on and on and on about free speech have the most heavily locked down and moderated spot on the entire internet. To be honest that's kind of a Nazi thing too. If you read the early history of the Nazis they went on a lot about the importance of free speech when they were coming up and once they were in control, well we all know what happened then.
  • That's still 79 million dollars for what amounts to nothing more than a Cheshire Cat's smile. Since Trump tends to not actually own anything carrying his name, just licensing his brand and collecting steep salaries for being the CEO of the business, I wonder how much of this actually ends up in his offshore accounts.
    • Thank you! And if they had 20B tokens, at 15c each, they were aiming for a staggering $3B. $3B to do anything they want with, because this is not a campaign contribution. $3B out of thin air almost, except for the fact they're conning thousands of Americans. This is worse than Bitcoin, because Bitcoin rewarded those that mined; this is a centralized issuance, aiming at grabbing money from the common person. It's wild.

  • The tokens are Non-transferrable. (Score:5, Informative)

    by allaunjsilverfox2 ( 882195 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2024 @01:38AM (#64868055) Homepage Journal
    According to the terms page, you can only use them to vote on the WLF Protocol. And "All $WLFI will be Non-transferable and locked indefinitely in a wallet or smart contract, until such time, if ever, $WLFI are unlocked through protocol governance procedures in a fashion that does not contravene applicable law." Anyone who buys these tokens are highly unlikely to ever be able to sell them. You'd have a better chance of making money by throwing dollar bills out the window and hoping someone gives you two back.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      All things the Trump fans are not smart enough to realize. Trump _knows_ his followers are deeply stupid.

  • Wait until it is your turn then empty your dollars into the trough and pick up your shitcoin.

  • Is it 15 cents or 1.5 cents per token?

    Site currently shows $0.015 per token.
    Did the token lose 90% of its value already?

  • Let us just listen to some music, 39 minutes should do.

    There, that's better.

    What was the question again?
    Where am I?
    Steve? Steve? Hey, Rubell! - great club man.

    We're gonna win bigly.

  • Some time ago I was curious about crypto and opened an account with coinbase. I mucked around but never transferred any money into that account in fear of loss. But now I'm a bit more curious to see if I can actually take a chance and play with a new crypto at its infant age priced at only 15 cents. I tried to connect to the coinbase wallet. It only offers the option to use keypass and not password. Which is fine because I have the keypass saved in 1Password. Only problem is it doesn't offer access to the 1

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