Former president Donald Trump promoted an upcoming crypto project called ‘The DeFiant Ones’ to his 7.57 million followers through his Truth Social account on Thursday. This comes after his sons teased a "huge" crypto announcement earlier this month, later revealing it to be a soon-to-launch DeFi protocol.

“For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites.” Trump said in his post, linking to the official Telegram channel, “It's time we take a stand—together. #BeDefiant.”

On Saturday, the Telegram channel, also called “The DeFiant Ones,” told its 25,000 subscribers that it will be sharing “important updates and announcements” in the coming days. But since then it’s only shared on post: “Let’s go!!!!!”

Earlier this month, Eric Trump told the New York Post that the family’s DeFi project will be related to “digital real estate,” leaving exactly what that means up to interpretation. 

To some, this has been interpreted to mean it’ll be a metaverse push a few years after that fad has faded. But to others, this may point to the tokenization of real-world assets, like real estate.

“It’s equitable. It’s collateral anyone can get access to and do so instantly," Eric Trump added. "I don’t know if people realize what a shake-up that is for the world of banking and finance. I hope we can help change that.”

The official Donald Trump tweet arrives a week after Eric and Donald Jr. teased a “huge” crypto announcement. The vagueness of this hint backfired with a meme coin that claimed to be associated with the Trump family launching the next day.

Within an hour of its launch, Restore the Republic (RTR) had a market capitalization of over $100 million as people speculated that it was the promised Trump-backed DeFi project. But, ultimately, Eric denied the family had ties with the project. In turn, the token tanked 90% in just 5 minutes.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.