PALM BEACH, Fla. — Wall Street executives and federal officials flocked to President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort Wednesday to lend their credibility to his family’s growing cryptocurrency empire — with one speaker declaring it the “power center of the universe” as the firm announced major new business deals.
World Liberty Financial, in which the Trump family holds a reported 38% stake, unveiled a major partnership with the Apex Group that could help mainstream the company’s digital stablecoin, called USD1, as well as plans to use that stablecoin to finance a new Trump-branded hotel with luxury floating villas in the Maldives.
A jaw-dropping guest list included two Senate-confirmed federal agency leaders, the chief executives of both of America’s largest stock exchanges, a pair of GOP senators, the CEO of Goldman Sachs and rapper Nicki Minaj.
Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, worth nearly $80 billion, shook hands on the patio of the president’s weekend residence — nearly four months after Zhao was pardoned by Trump in October after pleading guilty in 2023 to violating the Bank Secrecy Act with the world’s top crypto exchange. Binance holds roughly 87% of the more than $5 billion USD1 currently in issuance.
“We are not building this alone. We are building it with the institutions in the room,” said World Liberty CEO Zach Witkoff as he kicked off the forum in the gilded ballroom where a then-beleaguered Trump launched his campaign for a second term and drew a single member of Congress.
World Liberty was co-founded in 2024 by Trump, fellow billionaire Steve Witkoff, their five sons and two business partners after Trump and his allies were booted by major banks following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The president and Witkoff, who is now Trump’s special envoy, serve in non-active emeritus roles, according to the company. The president did not attend the event.
One Trump cabinet member, Small Business Administration administrator Kelly Loeffler, spoke, saying she has grown unafraid of facing public criticism, saying to her detractors, “Look, bring it on — and I’m standing in the truth and I’m here for the right reasons.”
“We need more people like all of you to come forward and serve in policy positions if not elected office,” the former Georgia senator told roughly 300 audience members at the invite-only event, which featured a small handful of journalists and no public livestream.
Michael Selig, commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), also attended.
Selig, whose agency plays a role in policing cryptocurrencies, said the US faced a “difficult moment” in financial innovation and that “it’s a moment we have to seize as regulators” — speaking at length about his desire to preempt state regulations, including for artificial intelligence and betting markets.
Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, New York Stock Exchange president Lynn Martin, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson were among the financial titans to speak.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino also attended, but he — like Minaj, who got a shout-out from Trump at a White House event Wednesday for her “beautiful skin” and nails — focused their remarks upon their own industries, with little apparent direct bearing on World Liberty.
“I do love him,” Minaj said of Trump, using Trump’s compliment to mention her nail company, and recounting her visit to Trump’s “merch room” last month off the Oval Office, saying she left with a Trump-signed Bible, scarves and perfume.
World Liberty offers a growing list of services, including its dollar-backed USD1 stablecoin, a digital token with a floating value known as $WLFI, and decentralized lending launched last month — claiming $328 million in lending and $239 million borrowed in four weeks. It also has plans to expand into high-speed, low-fee international remittance technology.
“I think you’re going to see a burgeoning use of stablecoins,” Florida Republican Sen. Ashley Moody told the audience beneath a golden prop of the company’s eagle logo, which also was stamped onto gold-foiled chocolate coins on guest tables.
“I think your demographic or age will go up,” she said.
Unlike Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies whose value fluctuates, stablecoins are meant to hold their value pegged to government currencies.
Zach Witkoff said the company’s basic mission was to establish a “faster dollar” with USD1.
“We are committed to doing it the right way: transparently, compliantly and for the long term,” he said. “If the dollar is going to remain the settlement currency in the digital age, it must evolve… If we don’t modernize it responsibly, others will modernize around us.
“If World Liberty succeeds, we don’t just build a successful company,” he said, but would “ensure the dollar remains the settlement backbone of the modern economy.”
Several of the traditional finance (tradfi) leaders spoke about they own embrace of blockchain technology. Others were candid about why they appeared at the decentralized finance (defi) event.
“I’m here because Alex Witkoff called me. Alex and his family are great clients,” said Solomon, whose bank is the nation’s seventh-largest. “When great clients of the firm ask me to do something… I say, ‘I’d be delighted to.’”
The business leaders and regulators arrived despite negative attention from critics of the president who have raised questions about conflicts of interest involved in the estimated $1 billion in proceeds that already flowed to the first family through World Liberty.
Democrats in Congress already have demanded information on the business and are likely to issue subpoenas for documents and testimony if they reclaim power in the November midterm elections.
The company’s reps sought to flip the script on negative PR — arguing that World Liberty is in fact transparent and allows for verification that US Treasury bonds or dollars are actually backing the stablecoin, which competes against Tether and second-place USDC.
World Liberty intends to rapidly scale-up deployment of USD1, which is currently the fifth-most-used stablecoin. Growth in adoption will determine the company’s traction when its political salience fades when Trump leaves office, attendees said.
In a significant boost of USD1, World Liberty announced Wednesday a new partnership with the Apex Group, a massive multinational financial services company with $3.5 trillion in assets serviced.
Apex CEO Peter Hughes said at the conference “it’s a real inflection point for us” because “we wanted to provide stablecoins to our clients” so they “can be used on corporate balance sheets” — saying he vetted other providers but was attracted to World Liberty’s “proof of reserve.”
“You guys are getting it right,” said Hughes — adding that corporate balance sheets could balloon stablecoin use to $15-20 trillion, an enormous leap that if reaped disproportionately by USD1 could challenge industry-leading Tether and a number of other offerings.
‘A sleeping giant’
Trump’s adults sons Donald Jr., 48, and Eric, 42, fired back at Democrats criticizing the company and said its formation was a direct result of banks including Capital One and JP Morgan Chase de-banking the family.
Eric Trump said the event was a “magical day” following the “ultimate David and Goliath story” faced by this family.
“They awoke a sleeping giant and I don’t think they can fight against it anymore,” he said of traditional banks. “We are on the one-yard line of the adoption of this. It’s coming fast, it’s coming heavy.”
“We were not early adapters in any of this, we were forced,” Don Jr. said.
“They created their own worst enemy — they created a monster.”
The family announced at the event that the Trump Organization’s new hotel project, built in cooperation with Middle Eastern firm Dar Global in the Maldives, will be “tokenized” with cryptocurrency, with USD1 being used for financing.
The event fused the president’s business with public policy — included repeated calls from speakers for Congress to pass the Clarity Act, would clarify the roles of the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission,
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) told The Post that he believed that stablecoins like USD1 could help firm up the US dollar’s global dominance — and that he hopes Congress will pass the Clarity Act by April.
“We are going to have that regulatory clarity bill passed, hopefully by April, and then the industry is going to blossom here in America,” Moreno said.
“From a US government perspective, the most exciting thing to me is really stablecoins” pegged to the US dollar, the senator said. “We [can] create a huge dollarization of the world… That cements US dollar dominance, which we worry about.”
Democrats demanded information on World Liberty after the revelation last month by the Wall Street Journal that entities controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the brother of the United Arab Emirates’ ruler, made a $500 million investment four days before Trump’s inauguration last year to acquire 49% of the company. The UAE royal later bought a $2 billion stake in Binance using USD1.
An Al Nahyan-linked AI company, G42, later received US permission to gain advanced computer chips despite American concerns about them being shared with China. G42’s Chinese-born CEO Peng Xiao joined World Liberty’s board, the Journal reported. Of the initial $250 million payment, about $187 million went to Trump-associated entities, about $31 million to Witkoff entities and $31 million to two business partners, Zak Folkmann and Chase Herro.
Rep. Ro Khanna of California, the top Democrat on the House committee on threats from China, issued a 16-question demand for information for the company following the report.
“He’s just running for president. He says dumb things because thats what politicans do that are in the opposition party,” scoffed Moreno, who attended Khanna’s wedding.
“He knows better. The reality is it’s a combination of Trump Derangement Syndrome combined with that’s just what you say when you are the opposition party. If President Trump were involved in saving puppies, they would say puppies are the worst thing ever.”
Moreno told The Post the pending cryptocurrency regulatory bill could steel the company against a hostile future Democratic administration after Trump’s term ends in 2029.
“That’s why we have got to pass this legislation. Because what we’re doing now basically for the next three years is future-proofing the things we have already accomplished so you don’t have some sort of lunatic that takes office in ‘29,” the senator said.
