A payments company once touted as a cornerstone of the Trump family's cryptocurrency ambitions is preparing to sell the only part of its business that generates revenue according to the Wall Street Journal, marking a dramatic reversal after a billion-dollar token deal left investors with steep losses while the Trump family collected hundreds of millions of dollars.
AI Financial, formerly Alt5 Sigma, is in talks to sell its payments subsidiary to Tokyo-based blockchain company Perpetuals.com for up to $15 million, according to the Journal. The unit generated roughly $25 million in revenue last year and is AI Financial's sole revenue-generating business.
The proposed sale marks a sharp reversal for a company that Trump-backed World Liberty Financial had promoted as the foundation of an international payments network powered by its USD1 stablecoin. Instead, the Journal reported the transaction has been "a money loser for almost everyone except the Trumps."
The problems began after World Liberty acquired a controlling stake in AI Financial in August 2025 by paying with its own WLFI cryptocurrency. AI Financial then raised an additional $750 million from outside investors to purchase more WLFI tokens, leaving the company heavily exposed to the Trump-backed digital asset.
Since then, WLFI has fallen roughly 70% in value, saddling AI Financial with hundreds of millions of dollars in paper losses on a large token position that remains partly locked up and cannot be freely sold. The company disclosed a $271 million quarterly loss tied largely to the decline in its WLFI holdings and previously warned investors about its ability to continue as a going concern.
The collapse has also devastated shareholders. AI Financial's stock has fallen more than 90% since the World Liberty transaction, reducing the Nasdaq-listed company's market value to roughly $80 million. The company has also cycled through multiple chief executives and outside auditors since the deal was announced.
While investors absorbed heavy losses, the Trump family profited from the structure of the transaction. Under World Liberty's token-sale agreement, the family is entitled to 75% of proceeds from WLFI sales, meaning AI Financial's purchases generated an estimated $540 million in cash for Trump-affiliated entities. President Donald Trump separately disclosed earning more than $1.4 billion from his cryptocurrency ventures during 2025, including approximately $527 million from WLFI token sales.
World Liberty had promoted AI Financial as a key vehicle for expanding its stablecoin ecosystem, but little of that strategy materialized. According to the Journal, no USD1 stablecoin transactions have ever been processed through AI Financial's payments platform.
If completed, the proposed transaction would leave AI Financial without its only revenue-generating business and largely dependent on a depreciated portfolio of Trump-linked cryptocurrency. Under the reported terms, Perpetuals.com would pay $5 million upfront in stock, with an additional $10 million contingent on future revenue targets, while also assuming certain liabilities. The Japanese blockchain company has also agreed to explore offering World Liberty's USD1 stablecoin in Europe and licensing its trading technology to AI Financial.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Journal that Trump's assets are held in "fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions" and maintained that "there are no conflicts of interest." World Liberty Financial and AI Financial declined to comment on the reported sale negotiations.
