A year ago, the Trump family’s crypto venture bought control of a small payments company for $750 million. The deal has been a money loser for almost everyone except the Trumps.
A display in Times Square shows Eric Trump speaking about a partnership between World Liberty Financial and Alt5 Sigma in 2025.
The Nasdaq-listed company—previously called Alt5 Sigma, and recently renamed AI Financial—is now in talks to sell its core business to blockchain technology company Perpetuals.com, according to a corporate filing. The price being discussed is for up to $15 million, according to a person familiar with the transaction and company documents. The terms of the deal aren’t completed and could change as negotiations continue, or the deal could fail to materialize.
The potential sale would mark an abrupt reversal for a company that the Trump venture World Liberty Financial had promoted as key to its plans to turn into a serious industry contender, harnessing dollar-based stablecoins to grow an international-payment business.
Instead, AI Financial has served mostly to channel more than half a billion dollars to the Trumps, in an instance of investors losing out while the presidential family rakes in cash. Last week, President Trump disclosed he had earned over $1.4 billion during 2025 from his crypto ventures, leading to an avalanche of complaints from Democrats that he was profiting from the presidency.
World Liberty acquired a majority stake in AI Financial in August by paying with its own cryptocurrency. The payments company then raised a further $750 million from investors to buy more of World Liberty’s digital tokens, called WLFI.
The deals saddled AI Financial with an enormous pot of Trump cryptocurrency that since has slumped 70% in value and is partly subject to a lockup. Investors in the raise have also seen their AI Financial shares fall over 90%, leaving the company’s market value at just $80 million.
But AI Financial’s woes were set against the Trumps’ gain. The Trump family are entitled to 75% of the proceeds from World Liberty’s sale of WLFI tokens, meaning AI Financial’s purchase handed them about $540 million in cash. President Trump’s disclosure identified income of $527 million from WLFI token sales, though the form didn’t specify which sales these proceeds corresponded to.
Spokespeople for World Liberty and AI Financial declined to comment on the deal talks. AI Financial didn’t respond to requests for comment. Tokyo-based Perpetuals.com said Tuesday it had signed a nonbinding agreement to explore the purchase of AI Financial’s payments business.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said all of Trump’s assets are “held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions. There are no conflicts of interest.” She added, “The President has implemented policies that have made all Americans wealthier and more prosperous.”
A Trump entity, DT Marks DEFI, of which the president owns 70%, holds a 38% stake in World Liberty. Trump’s three sons are co-founders, and Trump is listed as “Co-Founder Emeritus.”
World Liberty CEO Zach Witkoff, son of Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, took on the role of chairman at the payments company, then known as Alt5. At the time of the takeover, the younger Witkoff told CNBC it was “an incredible company, with incredible technology.”
Its new owners made little progress integrating World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin onto Alt5’s e-commerce payments platform. No USD1 transactions have ever been processed on the platform, trading data on Alt5’s website show.
Toward the end of last year, Alt5 announced the departure of the chief executive, acting chief executive and chief financial officer, chief operating officer and a board member who chaired the audit committee.
In April, AI Financial rebranded from Alt5 Sigma and said it aimed to become a financial platform for automated payments. The following month, AI Financial flagged concerns about its survival, citing a $271 million quarterly loss due to the decline in the value of its WLFI holdings, and mounting debts of $39 million. AI Financial said it had drawn down $15 million under a loan agreement with World Liberty.
The sale of AI Financial’s payments subsidiary would now strip the company of its sole revenue-generating business, which earned $25 million last year.
Under the potential deal, Nasdaq-listed Perpetuals.com would pay $5 million upfront for the subsidiary, in its own stock, with a further $10 million dependent on revenue targets, according to the company documents. Perpetuals.com would also settle the payments arm’s loans.
Perpetuals.com, which has licenses to offer crypto products in the European Union, also agreed to explore offering World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin to European investors, and to license its trading engine to AI Financial, the documents show.
