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It was hailed as 18-year-old Barron Trump's big moment: his first big speaking role in a public broadcast, promoting his family's new cryptocurrency venture.
But despite excited promises from his older brothers Don Jr, 46, and Eric, 40, the youngest son of former president Donald J Trump never made it onto the livestream.
"He's not here anymore, We took too long," said crypto entrepreneur Farokh Sarmad in an interview with the Trump clan on Monday night, which was broadcast live on X (formerly Twitter). "We're gonna try and get him back."
"Damned teenagers!" interjected Don Jr with a laugh. "I'm like the old boomer now – the grumpy old man with a white beard."
The Trumps and their business partners were there to unveil new details about World Liberty Financial (WLF), reportedly an online banking and lending platform designed to make crypto more accessible to ordinary Americans while protecting them from the "censorship" of big traditional banks.
A leaked document obtained by the crypto news outlet CoinDesk listed Eric and Don Jr as WLF's resident "Web3 Ambassadors" and Barron Trump as its "DeFi visionary" (that is, "decentralized finance").
Despite its roughly two hour run time, the interview revealed few concrete details of the new project, establishing only that it will involve a "stablecoin" – a digital currency whose value is pegged to the US dollar – and that early investors will not have a preferential share in its governance.
However, the elder Trump did credit his sons, and especially Barron, for opening his eyes to the potential of crypto, describing the latter as a b;lockchain wizard.
"Barron knows so much about this," the former president said. "Barron's a young guy, but he knows – he talks about his [crypto] wallet, he's got four wallets or something, and I'll say 'what is a wallet?' But he knows it inside out.
"It's almost like younger people know it a lot better than older people. But I have a lot of respect for them. They've shown great judgement, all of them."
