World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture backed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s family, earned millions of dollars from tokens it once promoted as a long-term industry reserve. Several partnerships announced alongside that reserve have yet to launch, according to a Bloomberg investigation.
The Bloomberg report, published on September 22, 2026, draws on blockchain data from analytics firms Nansen and Arkham Intelligence. It found that World Liberty built a “strategic token reserve” from tokens issued by other crypto projects.
These included Chainlink (LINK), a network that feeds outside data to blockchains; Aave (AAVE), a decentralized lending protocol; Ethena (ENA), a synthetic dollar protocol; Movement (MOVE), a blockchain network; and Ondo (ONDO), the token of Ondo Finance, which issues tokenized versions of U.S. Treasuries and stocks. World Liberty described the reserve as a financial backbone for planned lending, stablecoin, and tokenized asset products.
Co-founder Chase Herro promoted the plan with Donald Trump Jr. at an event organized by Ondo at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. Herro said the tokens would be kept on-chain, meaning visible on a public blockchain, as a show of commitment to the industry. “Who better to bring this world together?” he said.
Price Gains Faded After Purchases Became Public
Nansen’s analysis for Bloomberg found that the tokens rose between 10% and 26% the day after World Liberty’s purchases appeared on-chain. The gains did not last.
A broader crypto market decline and weaker demand for token accumulation strategies erased them. According to the analysis, an investor who bought after the World Liberty wallets became visible and held on would have lost money in most of the tokens.
Most Reserve Holdings Were Sold or Moved
The reserve did not stay intact. World Liberty invited institutions to contribute tokens, and Nansen said dozens of projects appear to have sent tokens to its wallets. Data from Nansen and Arkham show that World Liberty later sold or transferred most of its positions in four of the five core holdings: LINK, AAVE, ENA, and MOVE. Some of those tokens went to an account on a centralized exchange (CEX), a trading platform operated by a company, where they could be sold.
Same Tokens Appear on Trump’s Disclosure
All five tokens later appeared on Trump’s financial disclosure as income from World Liberty token sales, Bloomberg reported. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) released the President’s certified annual financial disclosure report on June 30, 2026. Bloomberg said World Liberty accounted for $594 million of income tied to Trump in 2025.
DT Marks DEFI LLC, a Delaware company connected to Trump, is entitled to 75% of World Liberty token-sale proceeds after operating expenses, under the project’s gold paper.
World Liberty did not answer Bloomberg’s questions about why those specific tokens reached Trump or whether they had been held in the reserve. Spokespeople for Aave and Ethena declined to comment. Ondo, Chainlink and a Movement executive did not respond.
Announced Integrations Have Not Launched
Aave was slated to power a World Liberty lending market, and a stablecoin issued by Ethena was meant to serve as collateral there. Neither plan has gone live as announced. Ondo’s plan to bring tokenized U.S. Treasuries and stocks onto the World Liberty platform has also not materialized, Bloomberg reported.
World Liberty has launched products of its own. These include the USD1 stablecoin, a token pegged to the U.S. dollar, and a lending market built with Dolomite, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol. A later token tied to a Trump-branded hotel project in the Maldives moved to the tokenization platform Securitize and was then paused.
World Liberty Responds
World Liberty spokesman David Wachsman told Bloomberg that the company “continuously refines its products and strategy in response to evolving markets” and that this approach has served it well.
The company pointed to the growth of USD1 and its Dolomite lending build, and said it evaluates integrations against its business priorities. Wachsman also said World Liberty has not taken part in or influenced any decision made by the administration.
Reserve Overlapped With Firms Holding Washington Interests
Several reserve tokens came from companies with separate interests before the federal government.
Chainlink holds about $83 million of WLFI, World Liberty’s governance token, according to Arkham data cited by Bloomberg. On August 28, 2025, the Department of Commerce announced it had begun posting gross domestic product (GDP) data to public blockchains, with the data also distributed through oracle networks including Chainlink. Chainlink CEO Sergey Nazarov has attended White House crypto events. He did not comment.
Ondo was the subject of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) inquiry that began under the Biden administration and examined whether the ONDO token should be treated as a security. Ondo said on December 8, 2025, that the SEC had closed the investigation without charges.
Arthur Hayes, whose writing helped inspire Ethena and who was an early investor in it, received a presidential pardon in March 2025, along with fellow BitMEX co-founders. BitMEX, the crypto derivatives exchange Hayes co-founded, set its closure for 04:00 UTC on September 23, 2026, following a strategic review by its owner, HDR Global Trading Limited.
As per the report, Hayes did not comment.
Ethics Questions Raised
Austin Campbell, founder of Zero Knowledge Consultancy, told Bloomberg that the case raises “both an ethics issue and a crypto-specific issue,” noting that crypto has a long record of projects promising more than they deliver. Marian Tupy, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said economic and political activity should be kept clearly separate.
A White House spokeswoman referred questions to the Trump Organization, which did not respond. Previous administrations generally sought to limit even the appearance of financial conflicts. The Trump administration has denied that the family’s crypto businesses create a conflict of interest.
As of Bloomberg’s report, the Aave, Ethena, and Ondo integrations announced alongside the reserve had not launched, and World Liberty said it continues to weigh integrations against its business priorities.
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