Former President Donald Trump appears to have promoted an “official” cryptocurrency project using his name in a post on Truth Social on Thursday.
“For too long, the average American has been crushed by big banks and financial elites. It’s time we take a stand — together. #BeDefiant,” the post read. The Republican presidential candidate also included a link to a Telegram channel for his official “DeFi” project.
“DeFi” stands for decentralized finance and refers to financial activities on a blockchain. This includes trading cryptocurrencies and transferring funds outside the scope of banking institutions.
Trump’s post on the project follows a series of moves he has made to align himself with the cryptocurrency community, which is very active online and tight-knit.
After calling cryptocurrency a “dollar scam” in 2021, Trump praised it this summer at a bitcoin conference, as cryptocurrency companies dramatically increased their political donations. A report from Public Citizen found that the cryptocurrency industry contributed $119 million this year to try to influence federal elections. That’s nearly half of all corporate contributions made this year. Trump has made investments in the industry and now owns more than $1 million in cryptocurrency. He also got into cryptocurrency with an NFT project in which people could buy digital cartoons of him tied to the blockchain.
Trump’s embrace of cryptocurrency also coincided with support from several well-known venture capitalists and technologists, including Elon Musk.
Trump’s son Eric had previously teased a “big announcement” around cryptocurrency and DeFi in a post on X on August 6. The Telegram channel Trump referenced was created the same day and quickly began gaining subscribers on Thursday, with nearly 30,000 subscribers an hour after Trump spoke about it.
Ahead of Trump’s post on Truth Social, the Telegram group ran a contest for Telegram Premium subscriptions and welcomed subscribers to “the only official Telegram channel of the Trump DeFi project!”
Telegram, a Dubai-based chat app, is known for hosting extremist and pro-Trump content outside the bounds of other social media platforms’ guidelines. After January 6, 2021, the platform banned some extremist groups.
Although cryptocurrency has seen massive popularity in recent years, it is also an attractive tool and target for scammers and hackers.
“Stay vigilant and don’t fall for identity theft or scams: our team will never send you a private message first,” the channel wrote in the announcement.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jason Abbruzzese contributed.
