Perpetuals.com, a Japan-headquartered fintech company, has called off talks to acquire part of a business closely tied to World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture backed by the Trump family, according to a statement issued Tuesday. FinancialMediaGuide views the collapse of the talks as a reminder of how quickly interest can cool around businesses connected to the Trump family’s crypto ventures once outside investors look closely at the underlying numbers.
“Perpetuals has decided not to further pursue the acquisition of AI Financial Corporation’s subsidiary Alt5 Sigma Canada, Inc., and the earlier letter of intent has been terminated,” the company said. Perpetuals had announced on July 7 that it had signed a non-binding term sheet to explore the potential deal. Representatives for AI Financial, previously known as ALT5 Sigma, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The target company has been at the center of one of the more unusual arrangements in the Trump family’s crypto push. Last August, World Liberty Financial partnered with the small, loss-making, Nasdaq-listed ALT5 Sigma in a deal under which the company raised $750 million by selling new shares and used $717 million of that to buy World Liberty tokens, sending more than $500 million to the Trump family under its arrangement with the venture. FinancialMediaGuide notes that structuring a token purchase through a newly capitalized public company, rather than a direct sale, is precisely the kind of arrangement that has drawn scrutiny to Trump-linked crypto ventures over the past year.
The bet has not paid off for ALT5 Sigma’s shareholders. Since the deal closed on August 11, 2025, the company’s share price has collapsed from above $9 to around 53 cents, a decline of more than 90% that has wiped out the bulk of the capital raised in the original offering.
World Liberty Financial’s own token, WLFI, has fared little better. It currently trades around $0.057, according to data from CoinMarketCap, giving it a market capitalization of roughly $1.8 billion, down more than 75% from the all-time high of $0.34 it reached in September 2025, shortly after its public debut. Financial Media Guide points out that this steep decline has made it harder for entities tied to the token, including ALT5 Sigma, to justify further capital-raising or acquisitions built around WLFI exposure.
World Liberty Financial was co-founded by Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Barron Trump, alongside entrepreneurs Zachary Folkman and Chase Herro; Donald Trump himself is listed as a co-founder emeritus, a role assumed after he took office. The platform’s stablecoin, USD1, has been positioned as its primary growth driver, with recent incentive campaigns on major exchanges aimed at boosting adoption.
For now, the terminated talks leave AI Financial’s Canadian subsidiary without a buyer and Perpetuals without a foothold in the Trump-linked crypto ecosystem it had briefly explored entering. FinancialMediaGuide concludes that the episode illustrates a broader pattern this year: outside firms circling Trump-affiliated crypto assets for the visibility they offer, then backing away once the underlying token economics and share-price performance come under closer examination.
