By Mat Di Salvo
3 min read
Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s crypto project World Liberty Financial is finally starting to open up its doors to users—though not all Americans are currently eligible to sign up for the upcoming platform.
Users could connect crypto wallets to the website as of Monday morning, and a World Liberty Financial spokesperson also confirmed to Decrypt that the project was indeed ready for prospective clients to sign up for, but did not comment further.
The World Liberty Financial website allows users to start their know-your-customer verification process by selecting their jurisdiction of residence. It is open to accredited investors only in the United States, along with investors in other countries, though the project tweeted that it hopes to open things up in the future to all U.S. users.
“We plan for all Americans to be able to use this platform in the future, giving everyone access to the tools and opportunities that have been restricted for far too long,” the project said in a Monday tweet.
According to the SEC, accredited investors include those with a net worth of at least $1 million, either individually or with a partner (and excluding value of primary residence). They must also have a salary of at least $200,000 solo or $300,000 with a spouse/partner in each of the last two years, plus the expectation of again hitting that mark in the current year.
Additional requirements are also stated for entities and investment professionals, but the core stipulations leave out a sizable chunk of Americans. Interested parties outside of the U.S. can apparently sign up without meeting income requirements.
Even with the SEC limitations, former President Donald Trump said on Twitter (aka X) Monday that the project will “help make America the crypto capital of the world,” and affirmed that the whitelist for eligible persons was open.
Details on the Trump-backed project—which was first teased in August by son Eric Trump—have so far been vague, but we do know that it is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol running on Ethereum, the crypto network behind the second biggest digital coin by market cap, ETH.
DeFi is a fast-moving, experimental, and oft-risky sphere in the cryptocurrency space that wants to replace traditional financial services like banks with faster and more efficient technologies. Trump’s project will provide borrowing and lending crypto services, World Liberty Financial previously said.
Donald Trump used to be anti-crypto, but has branded himself as the pro-digital asset candidate ahead of the November election.
The former real estate mogul and Republican has tried to woo the Bitcoin space, including claiming that he wants all future digital coins minted on U.S. soil. He has also come out against the SEC and Chairman Gary Gensler for the regulator's crypto crackdown.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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