The latest hiccup in Trump’s crypto launch: Deleted posts and a hacking claim
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he holds a rally at the Cambria County War Memorial Arena in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, U.S. August 30, 2024.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
The X accounts of two family members of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump‘ appeared to have been hacked Tuesday in order to promote a scam aimed at cashing in on the Trump family’s nascent crypto venture.
The hacks come as the former president prepares to release his crypto policy platform, and his campaign wrestles with the fallout of a foreign cyberattack.
Shortly after 8:15 p.m. ET, the X account belonging to Trump’s daughter-in-law, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump appeared to announce that the digital currency project, dubbed World Liberty Financial, had been launched.
The account provided several links to Trump’s 1.7 million followers to a coin and websites claiming to be “the only official channels of World Liberty Financial.”
One minute later, Donald Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump’s X account also posted an endorsement and a website link.
The website linked to in the Trump family posts had been created earlier in the day Tuesday and registered via an anonymous domain hosting platform called Njalla Okta LLC, according to domain lookup site WhoIs.com.
Domiciled in the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis, Njalla Okta was created by a cofounder of The Pirate Bay, a dark-web marketplace. All of which makes it nearly impossible for the public to trace the identity of the person behind the fake World Liberty Financial sites.
A few minutes after Lara Trump’s posts, her husband, Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump, appeared to use his own X account to write “This is a scam!!” He wrote that his wife and his sister’s “profiles have been compromised.”
All of these posts, including Eric Trump’s warning, have since been deleted. But not before screenshots captured the contents.
Spokespeople for the Trump presidential campaign and the Trump Organization did not reply to requests for comment Tuesday about the reported hacks, or the status of the Trump crypto venture. CNBC also contacted Eric Trump for comment via X, and did not immediately receive a reply.
The incident is the latest apparent stumble in the Trump family’s effort to launch a crypto platform.
Since June, multiple digital tokens supposedly backed by the Trump team or members of the Trump family have launched. CNBC could not independently verify that any of them were directly connected to the billionaire Republican presidential nominee’s family.
One was dubbed DJT, the same call letters as Trump Media Technology Group’s ticker symbol on the Nasdaq exchange. The coin pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars before the founders pulled the funds in early August, sending the coin plummeting in value.
The World Liberty project already appears to have missed one deadline last week, for a planned announcement.
The project comes in the wake of Trump’s keynote speech this summer at the annual Bitcoin Conference in which he declared his intent, among other things, to create a national reserve of Bitcoin if elected president.
Trump has been keen to ally himself with the crypto crowd, which has proven to be the largest single industry source of donations to either party this campaign cycle. Nearly half of all the corporate funds donated this election cycle have been from the crypto industry.
Tuesday’s incident appeared to affect the price of solana, a separate cryptocurrency token named in the supposedly fake posts. Immediately after they were sent, the price of solana fell 9% before recovering to about $126.
Lara Trump had described an accompanying governance token on solana which would support the DeFi lending protocol, World Liberty Financial.
Decentralized finance, or DeFi, describes a parallel banking system which cuts out middlemen like banks and lawyers and replaces them with something known as smart contracts, which are pieces of code that self-execute when certain conditions are met.
Environment
Baidu- and Geely-backed JiYue brand unveils ROBO X EV that goes 0-100 km/h in under 1.9 sec
JiYue, a Chinese EV brand focused on delivering all-electric “robocars” to the masses, has unveiled its latest model, and it’s quite a deviation from its previous EVs—but in the best way. Earlier today, JiYue launched the ROBO X supercar, designed for high-speed racing. By high speed, we mean 0-100 km/h acceleration in under 1.9 seconds. My mouth is watering.
JiYue has only existed since 2021, when parent tech company Baidu announced it was expanding from software development into physical EV production, joining forces with multinational automotive manufacturer Geely.
The new “robotic EV” marque initially launched as JIDU with $300 million in startup capital before garnering an additional $400 million in Series A funding, led by Baidu, in January 2022.
In August 2023, Geely took on a larger role in JIDU alongside a greater financial stake as the brand reimagined itself as JiYue, inheriting the JIDU logo and its flagship model, the 01 ROBOCAR.
In December 2023, Baidu and Geely unveiled a second model called the JiYue 07. It was born from JIDU’s ROBO-02 concept, which debuted in 2023 and was designed to compete against the Tesla Model 3 in China.
The 07 finally launched in China earlier this year with 545 miles of range. With an all-electric SUV and sedan on the market, JiYue has unveiled an exciting new entry in the form of a performance supercar called the ROBO X. Check it out:
JiYue’s new ROBO X EV is available for pre-order now
JiYue showcased its new ROBO X hypercar in front of the crowd at the 2024 Guangzhou Auto Show earlier today. Similar to previous models but with a unique spin, JiYue described the ROBO X as an AI smart-driving supercar that, for the first time, blends artificial intelligence and autonomous driving into a high-performance, race-ready EV.
When we say “high performance,” we mean a quad motor liquid-cooled drive system that can propel the ROBO X from 0 to 100 km/h (0 to 62 mph) in under 1.9 seconds. JiYue called the new ROBO X a “performance beast” with “the perfect balance of excellent aerodynamic performance and high downforce.” JiYue CEO Joe Xia was even bolder in his statements about the ROBO X:
For the next 20 years, the design of supercars will bear the shadow of Robo X. This is the best design in the history of Chinese automobiles today, and it is a landmark presence.
Fighter-style airflow ducts bolster the EV’s aerodynamics, efficiency, and overall posture. Per JiYue, the two-seater ROBO X is expected to deliver a maximum range of over 650 km (404 miles).
The new supercar features falcon-wing doors, a carbon fiber integrated frame, and a professional racing HALO safety system offering 360° of support. The interior features an AI smart cockpit with SIMO real-time feedback to give drivers an immersive racing experience.
Furthermore, JiYue said the vehicle will utilize parent company Baidu’s Apollo self-driving technology, which could make it the first electric supercar to apply pure-vision ADAS technology that enables track-level autonomous driving.
Following today’s unveiling of the ROBO X, JiYue has officially opened up pre-orders in China for RMB 49,999 ($6,915). That said, reservation holders will need to be patient as JiYue shared that it doesn’t expect to begin mass production of the ROBO X until 2027.
What do you think? Will people be talking about the ROBO X for the next 20 years?
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This week on Electrek’s Wheel-E podcast, we discuss the most popular news stories from the world of electric bikes and other nontraditional electric vehicles. This time, that includes the launch of the Lectric XPedition 2.0, Yamaha e-bikes pulling out of North America, LiveWire unveils an electric scooter concept, PNY readying its cargo e-scooters for pilot testing, Royal Enfield’s first electric motorcycle, and more.
The Wheel-E podcast returns every two weeks on Electrek’s YouTube channel, Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
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Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the Wheel-E podcast today:
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 9:30 a.m. ET (or the video after 10:30 a.m. ET):
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Crude oil futures were on pace Friday for loss for the week, as a supply gut and a strong dollar depresses the market.
U.S. crude oil is down more than 2% this week, while Brent has shed nearly 2%.
Here are Friday’s energy prices:
- West Texas Intermediate December contract: $68.56 per barrel, down 14 cents, or 0.2%. Year to date, U.S. crude oil has shed about 4%.
- Brent January contract: $72.36 per barrel, down 20 cents, or 0.28%. Year to date, the global benchmark has lost nearly 6%.
- RBOB Gasoline December contract: $1.99 per gallon, up 0.46%. Year to date, gasoline has fallen more than 1%.
- Natural Gas December contract: $2.70 per thousand cubic feet, down 2.98%. Year to date, gas has gained more than 4%.
The International Energy Agency has forecast a surplus of more than 1 million barrels per day in 2025 on robust production in the U.S. OPEC revised down its demand forecast for the fourth consecutive month as demand in China remains soft.
A strong dollar also hangs over the market, as the greenback has surged in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory.
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