Trump punts on promise to deliver plan to make U.S. ‘crypto capital of the planet’

On Thursday morning, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told his 90 million followers on X that they would hear his plan to make the U.S. the crypto capital of the planet that same day.

But after a rally in Michigan and a town hall in Wisconsin, Thursday ended with no sign of Trump’s plan for digital assets.

A campaign spokesman did not reply when CNBC asked what happened to the crypto plan rollout.

Throughout the day Thursday, CNBC heard from several pro-crypto Trump supporters who were eagerly anticipating what the Republican nominee might say.

A town hall Thursday night moderated by bitcoin supporter and former Congressman, Tulsi Gabbard seemed like the ideal setting.

But Trump said nothing about crypto.

Earlier on Thursday, the GOP pick pumped up the Trump Organization’s new crypto platform, which has just been rebranded from “The DeFiant Ones,” to “World Liberty Financial.”

In a post on X, the former president shared a video of himself with voiceover: “This afternoon, I’m laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet. They want to choke you. They want to choke you out of business. We’re not going to let that happen.”

It was unclear who Trump meant by “they,” and a Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to questions from CNBC about the announcement.

In Trump’s post on Thursday morning, he tagged a verified X account called “World Liberty Fi,” or WLFI. The account has more than 32,000 followers and a handful of posts that began on Aug. 22.

The project also involves Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.

“Excited to announce the launch of @WorldLibertyFi! A new era in finance is here,” Eric said Wednesday in a post on X.

The crypto project’s accompanying Telegram channel, which has also been renamed World Liberty Financial, had more than 57,000 subscribers as of Thursday evening, and climbing.

The announcement came a day after Trump launched a new round of his NFT trading cards.

Like the crypto platform, the nonfungible tokens are a private Trump family enterprise in the digital currency space, and are not officially connected to Trump’s presidential campaign.

But the campaign and the private businesses dovetail, in that the NFTs and the crypto platform are promoted as part of Trump’s political brand, and they are marketed to his supporters.

For Trump, these private crypto enterprises offer an opportunity to both lure crypto voters and donors, and to make money.

The Republican nominee has been leaning into being the pro-crypto candidate for president, delivering increasingly bullish talking points on the industry.

Donations and endorsements from the crypto voting bloc have followed. The latest tally from the Trump camp put the total crypto-related raise at $25 million. CNBC has not been able to independently verify that figure.

Trump’s eldest son recently said the family was working to develop a crypto platform that would rival the traditional banking system.

“I think there has been a lot of inequality in that only certain people can get financing […] so this notion of decentralized finance is obviously very appealing to guys like me who have been debanked,” Donald Trump Jr. said in the interview on Locals.

Eric meanwhile told the New York Post the project involved digital real estate, which could mean tokenizing real-world assets or refer to selling digitized versions of assets in the metaverse.

The former president described the project last week to his 7.5 million followers on Truth Social as a way to “take a stand — together.”

“For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites,” Trump wrote.