Will Yoo, co-founder of a $14.4 million-funded crypto startup, says his six-figure bet on getting Trump's posts faster failed him at exactly the wrong moment.
Yoo, a co-founder of blockchain developer Unto Labs, said on X that he paid $100,000 for access to Truth API, Trump Media's new high-speed feed of Truth Social posts, only to learn President Donald Trump's market-moving Hyperliquid comments through X along with everyone else.
$100,000 for milliseconds
Trump Media, the company behind Truth Social, launched Truth API earlier this month specifically for financial firms willing to pay for speed.
- The service delivers machine-readable posts from Truth Social's most influential accounts directly to customers in milliseconds, rather than requiring traders to manually watch the website.
- Trump Media says it's aimed particularly at high-frequency and algorithmic trading firms, where tiny differences in information delivery can matter.
The company had pitched access for as much as $100,000 per month, or $60,000 per month under a three-year commitment, Reuters reported in July.
Trump Media CEO Kevin McGurn has since said the company has signed up more than 10 customers, mostly high-frequency securities trading firms.
Then Trump mentioned Hyperliquid
At a White House gathering with crypto and technology executives on Wednesday, Aug. 19, Trump unexpectedly singled out Hyperliquid, a blockchain-based exchange best known for leveraged perpetual futures.
"I understand that Mike is also working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion. Working very hard on that," Trump said, referring to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig.
Hyperliquid currently restricts U.S. users, making any potential path into the American market particularly significant for the platform.
- Traders reacted almost immediately. HYPE, Hyperliquid's native token, jumped by double digits following Trump's comments, while clips and headlines from the White House event spread across X and financial news feeds.
- For someone paying specifically to shave milliseconds off the time it takes to receive Trump's market-moving social-media posts, there was no special lane this time.
Not exactly a random trader
Yoo isn't merely an X user making a joke about an expensive subscription. He co-founded Unto Labs with former Jump Crypto engineer Liam Heeger in late 2024.
The San Francisco startup reportedly raised $14.4 million from investors, including Electric Capital and Framework Ventures in 2025 at a $140 million valuation.
- Unto is developing Thru, a Layer-1 blockchain designed around a RISC-V-based virtual machine.