Former US president Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency platform faced a setback in sales launch on Tuesday as only a fraction of its digital coins found buyers when they went on the market.

In mid-September, the Republican candidate announced that he, alongside his sons and entrepreneurs, would launch the platform World Liberty Financial.

However, the company offered 20 billion tokens, priced at 1.5 cents each, for a total of 300 million, but just 3% had been purchased by Tuesday evening.

The tokens serve as cryptocurrencies and grant buyers a vote on the platform's governance.

Many observers blamed the low sales on technical problems, as the company's website suffered outages earlier in the day.

World Liberty Financial will enable users to lend or borrow cryptocurrencies to or from one another, a service already offered by many platforms, one of the best-known of which is Aave.

During his presidency, Trump referred to cryptocurrencies as a scam, but has since radically changed his position, presenting himself as a "pro-bitcoin president" if elected in November.