Donald Trump promotes his family's forthcoming crypto platform, The DeFiant Ones, in a Truth Social post that links to a Telegram channel but with few details
Trump is launching a cryptocurrency platform, and we have no idea what it does — The Verge — https://www.theverge.com/... Dan Gillmor / @dangillmor@mastodon.social : Trump has found new sheep to fleece — the countless people (and businesses) the banks have jettisoned or screwed over. — The cryptocurrency scammers fleeced a lot of them in the last bubble. But desperate people will always be targets. … @andy@social.seattle.wa.us : When a grifter opens a crypto platform that is mostly used for grift. You can bet that they are going to end up stealing people's money. — https://www.theverge.com/... #crypto #trump Mike Elgan / @MikeElgan@mastodon.social : I hereby propose that we call the Trump family cryptocurrency “Shitcoin” and the Jr. and Eric the “Stinklevai.” https://www.theverge.com/... X: Donald Trump Jr / @donaldjtrumpjr : DJT: For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites. It's time we take a stand—together. #BeDefiant https://t.me/... [image] Eric Trump / @erictrump : Almost ready to make some big announcements regarding the Crypto project... Getting very excited. Make sure you are in our Telegram group... Kevin Collier / @kevincollier : I am baffled baffled baffled that Trump's Truth Social account is pitching a DeFi project by telling followers to leave his own platform and go to Telegram instead. Like, the exact way scammers do. [image] @icebergy_ : trump tweeting out a telegram link for their defi scam before the election is an interesting strategy @cryptotea_ : Donald Trump is promoting a DeFi project related to “digital real estate” people are speculating that it will be tokenized real world assets [image] Adam Cochran / @adamscochran : A scammy DeFi project channel launched by Trumps son and endorsed by Trump. You are nothing but sheep to the slaughter for this grifter. Forums: r/economy : Trump promotes family's new crypto platform, ‘The Defiant Ones’ r/centrist : Trump promotes family's new crypto platform, ‘The Defiant Ones’ r/Buttcoin : Trump Jr admits to being “debanked” r/AnythingGoesNews : Trump is launching a cryptocurrency platform, and we have no idea what it does
Context & Ripple Effects
The launch messaging relies on Trump’s existing social distribution and moves interested users into a Telegram channel before the product’s mechanics are public. That makes the channel—not a disclosed service—its initial point of contact with prospective users.
This early promotion preceded a broader expansion of Trump-linked crypto and finance activity, including the later social-media promotion of the TRUMP memecoin and Truth.Fi’s proposed allocation to bitcoin and other crypto investments. The common thread is the use of a political-media brand to build financial-product attention.
First-order effects
- Trump’s Truth Social audience is directed to Telegram for updates, giving the family project an immediate owned community channel despite limited product disclosure.
- The lack of stated functionality leaves potential users unable to evaluate the platform’s risks or utility from the promotion itself, while making scam-pattern concerns raised by observers more salient.
Second-order effects
- Telegram becomes a key trust and distribution layer for the project: moderation, impersonation, and message clarity there can directly shape whether prospective users view it as credible.
- The promotion increases pressure on any eventual product launch to provide verifiable mechanics and safeguards; otherwise, the gap between celebrity reach and disclosed details becomes the central reputational issue.
Third-order effects
- If prominent political and media brands keep using social channels to seed crypto products before their terms are clear, crypto’s legitimacy gap may increasingly hinge on disclosure and user-protection practices rather than marketing reach alone.
- The later move from token promotion toward a branded fintech offering suggests Trump-linked ventures could span multiple crypto entry points, though this article alone does not establish how The DeFiant Ones would connect to them.
The trend: This is one data point in the convergence of political-media audiences, direct social distribution, and branded crypto-finance products.