Trump family got about $500M from crypto venture — but investors saw steep losses
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- World Liberty Financial, co-founded by Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Barron Trump, sold $1.5 billion worth of WLFI tokens to Alt5 Sigma in August, with the Trump family entitled to roughly $500 million — about 75% of token-sale proceeds per World Liberty's 2024 disclosure.
- AI Financial Corp (formerly Alt5 Sigma, ticker ALTS/AIFC) saw its stock plunge from $8.97 on Aug. 8 to 66 cents by the June 8 close, a 93% FactSet-tracked drop, and faces possible Nasdaq delisting if it can't sustainably lift its share price out of penny-stock levels in the next 15 trading days.
- Major hedge fund investors were hit hard: Point72 (Steven A. Cohen) bought in for $36.5 million and exited; ExodusPoint Capital Management held $14 million in paper losses on $44 million acquired; Hong Kong-based Soul Ventures lost an estimated $56–58 million on an $85 million position it exited by mid-October.
- Attorneys for the Democracy Defenders Fund urged the SEC in April to "commence an independent investigation into ALTS without delay"; the SEC declined to comment on whether it has examined AI Financial since the Trump family's involvement.
- Eric Trump was nominated to AI Financial's board, but World Liberty scrapped the plan after Nasdaq noted he wouldn't qualify as an independent director given the crypto deal; he posted on X in May that he has "zero leadership or decision-making role in the company."
- AI Financial has churned through three CEOs and three outside auditors in roughly 10 months, took a loan from World Liberty in January, and used some of those proceeds to try to lift its own share price — an effort that failed.
- The Trump family also holds an indirect stake in AI Financial via World Liberty's 1 million shares, 99 million prefunded warrants, and 20 million warrants exercisable at $7.50 to $9.75 per share, per SEC filings.
Why it matters: The Trump family walked away with roughly $500 million from a deal that erased about 93% of AI Financial's share price and left institutional investors like ExodusPoint and Soul Ventures with tens of millions in losses. With three CEOs and three auditors in under a year, a delisting clock ticking, and the SEC declining to comment on calls for an independent probe, this becomes a live test of whether crypto deals involving politically connected families draw meaningful federal scrutiny.
