Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election pushed Bitcoin to break the $100,000 mark, accelerating the current bull market. Not just Bitcoin, but also projects related to the Trump team are showing signs of takeoff.
Recently, World Liberty Financial (hereafter WLFI), closely related to the Trump family, has frequently purchased ETH, LINK, AAVE, ENA, etc., sparking a following trend in the market and becoming a significant barometer in the crypto investment market.
So, what is WLFI, and what market-moving actions might it take in the future?
01
What is WLFI?
WLFI is a DeFi project supported by Trump and his family (including eldest son Donald Trump Jr., third son Eric Trump, and youngest son Barron Trump), officially launched on the Aave V3 platform on the Ethereum mainnet in September 2023.
WLFI is essentially a DeFi platform that supports users in borrowing, lending, and investing in cryptocurrencies. The founder's vision is to make it a tool for achieving financial independence, allowing users to conduct private peer-to-peer transactions without relying on traditional financial intermediaries, thus promoting the development of global decentralized finance, particularly for those underserved by traditional banking services. The Trump family has called it 'the future of crypto DeFi.'
WLFI is the governance token of World Liberty Financial, with each token granting its holder one vote in community proposals on the governance platform. However, its initial distribution plan has undergone adjustments, with more than half previously allocated for sale now shifted to community and creator incentives, reflecting changes in the share of community incentives and initial supporters.
Unlike other governance Tokens such as UNI and MKR, WLFI does not provide economic rights, meaning they cannot be transferred after redemption, which implies that users cannot trade/exchange/sell WLFI after holding the Token. Although this may change through governance proposals in the future, it currently appears that the Token cannot be traded for a long time.
Perhaps due to its non-transferability, which does not provide short-term profit opportunities for cryptocurrency investors, WLFI has seen low liquidity since its launch on October 15.
It is also worth noting that WLFI is only available for users outside the United States and is not registered with any financial regulatory agency. This means U.S. residents cannot participate in trading these Tokens, possibly to avoid scrutiny from U.S. law enforcement.
Considering its promotion method, to put it more bluntly, WLFI is a project that seeks to promote the use of dollar stablecoins and DeFi applications under the influence of Trump, aiming to strengthen the dollar's position in the DeFi space.
Therefore, one must explore how the Trump family has supported this project.
1) Team member information
According to WLFI's official information, there is a statement describing itself: inspired by Trump to promote the widespread adoption of stablecoins and DeFi, especially dollar stablecoins, thus ensuring the dollar's dominant position.
Donald Trump himself serves as the project's 'Chief Cryptocurrency Advocate', while his sons Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Barron Trump serve as Web3 ambassadors, helping to promote the platform and attract mainstream users.
In this context, according to the content of the white paper, DT Marks DEFI LLC (a company under Trump) agreed to promote WLFI and granted it the right to use the names and images of Trump family members for promotional purposes. In return, WLFI pays Tokens to DT Marks DEFI LLC and shares a portion of the net revenue from the agreement (approximately 75%).
However, the Trump family has legally circumvented any connection with WLFI. While WLFI claims to be the 'only DeFi platform inspired by Trump', the advocates and ambassadors from the Trump family do not hold any real positions in management, and there is a small note at the bottom of the official website:
Donald J. Trump, any family member, or any board member, officer, or employee of Trump Group, DT Marks DEFI LLC, or their respective affiliates are not officers, directors, founders, or employees of WLFI or its affiliates. ... World Liberty Financial and its WLFI Token are not political in nature and do not belong to any political campaign.
Therefore, some critics argue that WLFI is deeply tied to the Trump family and is a product branded by the Trump family, with unknown operators leveraging the Trump family's reputation to launch products, while the Trump family brands and profits from it. This type of business operation is commonplace for the Trump family. For example, many hotels or buildings named after Trump around the world are often collaborations with Trump in licensing and branding forms.
Overall, although various promotions claim that WLFI has many connections with the Trump family, there is actually no legal connection. This may also be one reason why people are skeptical of WLFI.
In addition to the strong support from the Trump family, the WLFI team is composed of experienced cryptocurrency practitioners.
The official website shows that WLFI has a total of five founders, among whom Chase Herro and Zak Folkman's industry resumes are not particularly impressive. According to CoinDesk, they previously launched a lukewarm DeFi product called Dough Finance, which suffered a hack loss of $2 million in the summer of 2024. Additionally, WLFI's blockchain lead Octavian Lojnita and an anonymous developer also come from the previous company Dough Finance. CoinDesk's report also indicated that an audit revealed that the codebase released on WLFI in its early stages directly copied Dough Finance's code, which was later removed.
However, WLFI stated that the purchase of ENA Token is not directly related to the cooperation with Ethena Labs, but rather indicates WLFI's confidence in the long-term viability and success of the Ethena network.
In addition to Chase Herro and Zak Folkman, the other three co-founders of WLFI are from Steven Witkoff's family (founder Steven Witkoff, Zach Witkoff, Alex Witkoff), with Steven Witkoff being a well-known real estate developer in the U.S. and a friend of Trump.
In addition, WLFI also has an advisory team composed of venture capitalists, lawyers, and blockchain engineers. Among them are Sandy Peng, co-founder of the Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain Scroll, and Luke Pearson, a general partner at Polychain Capital.
It can be seen that these advisors have specific technical expertise and market experience, which helps WLFI achieve its long-term goals, especially in promoting dollar stablecoins and expanding DeFi applications.
2) Development status
Although the entire altcoin market has begun to recover under the influence of Bitcoin, WLFI's sales still remain less than optimistic, having only sold about a quarter since its release.
However, two things are worth noting: first, at the end of November, Tron's founder Sun Yuchen spent $30 million to configure WLFI Token to show support for the project, becoming its largest public investor as of now; subsequently, on November 26, Sun Yuchen was appointed as an advisor to WLFI.
Following the announcement of Sun Yuchen as an ambassador advisor, on December 18, WLFI announced a partnership with Ethena Labs, with both parties seeking a long-term collaboration, starting with the revenue Token sUSDe from Ethena.
In addition, the most attention is drawn to the various altcoins exchanged by WLFI, as each move can directly stimulate a wave of trading enthusiasm.
02
On-chain activities of the WLFI project
According to monitoring by Spot On Chain, since November 2024, WLFI has reserved various mainstream and emerging crypto assets through a main wallet address, especially in December, with cumulative expenditures close to $45 million, including ETH, cbBTC, LINK, AAVE, ENA, and the latest ONDO, with a total holding value surpassing $84.8 million.
According to incomplete statistics, the reserves of crypto assets include:
1) ETH
Ethereum, as the world's second-largest cryptocurrency platform, has an undeniable position and influence in the industry.
WLFI has acquired ETH multiple times, with the most expenditure on ETH. Previous reports indicated that it spent $30 million to reserve 8,105 ETH at an average price of about $3,700, and the most recent operation was on December 20, where it acquired 722.213 ETH for $2.5 million via Cow Protocol. After this transaction, WLFI's total ETH holdings reached 16,400 ETH.
2) cbBTC
cbBTC (Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin) is an ERC-20 Token launched by Coinbase, aimed at bringing the value of Bitcoin (BTC) to blockchain networks like Ethereum. WLFI spent $10 million to exchange for approximately 103 cbBTC, with an average operating price of $97,181 per piece; subsequently, WLFI converted all cbBTC into WBTC.
This move occurred on the same day Coinbase announced the delisting of WBTC for failing to meet CEX standards. Coinbase's delisting of WBTC made WLFI's move seen as support for WBTC.
WLFI's choice to convert cbBTC to WBTC may be due to WBTC's maturity and infrastructure advantages in the market, or it may have been influenced by Sun Yuchen's role as an advisor in this decision.
This is because Sun Yuchen’s custodial company BiT Global and BitGo, the company behind WBTC, announced a partnership in August this year, whereby the WBTC business was transferred from the original company to BiT Global and Sun Yuchen.
3) AAVE
AAVE is a decentralized lending protocol based on Ethereum that allows users to deposit to earn interest or borrow crypto assets, which is the protocol WLFI leveraged.
WLFI's investment in AAVE Token is also quite active, having made multiple configurations. WLFI exchanged AAVE at a price of $246,000 for a unit price of $360; another exchange was worth $1.25 million for a unit price of $308.4 for AAVE; additionally, they exchanged $1 million for a unit price of $297.8 for AAVE. Currently, WLFI holds a total of 6.137 million AAVE.
4) LINK
The project behind LINK is Chainlink, a decentralized oracle network designed to provide reliable off-chain data for smart contracts on the blockchain. In simple terms, Chainlink helps blockchains access and use external data.
WLFI's investment in LINK has also been relatively frequent, having configured LINK at prices of $34.2, $25.5, $27, etc., spending a total of around $8 million. Currently, WLFI holds a total of 78,300 LINK.
Reports suggest that WLFI will integrate with Chainlink oracles to accelerate the adoption of DeFi. Chainlink is currently the leading data oracle solution in the market, and as a DeFi platform, WLFI may need to leverage Chainlink's oracle services to ensure the accuracy and security of its financial products. Therefore, purchasing LINK may be aimed at acquiring and utilizing Chainlink's services to enhance the platform's functionality and credibility.
5) ENA
Ethena (ENA) is a decentralized finance platform that ensures asset stability through an algorithmic stablecoin mechanism. ENA can be used for collateral, trading, and governance. The platform provides efficient trading, liquidity mining, and DeFi integration, aiming to provide stable and transparent financial services for crypto assets.
WLFI has spent a total of $750,000 to reserve 741,687 ENA, with an average operating price of $1.011 per piece; additionally, it reserved 509,954 ENA at a price of $500,000, with an average price of 0.98 USDT per piece, currently holding a total of 741,000 ENA.
However, a spokesperson for WLFI stated that the purchase of ENA Token is not directly related to the partnership with Ethena Labs, but only indicates WLFI's confidence in the long-term viability and success of the Ethena network.
6) ONDO
The project behind Ondo is Ondo Finance, a DeFi protocol based on Ethereum aimed at transforming traditional liquidity services into tokenized real-world assets, connecting crypto assets with the real economy. Its flagship product is the RWA bond, and currently, Ondo has launched four products on Binance contracts, including the U.S. money market fund OMMF, Blackrock's short-term U.S. Treasury ETF OUSG, tokenized notes USDY, and Flux Finance supporting tokenized securities collateral.
For Ondo, WLFI only had one configuration operation, spending a total of $250,000 to configure 134,000 ONDO, with an average operating price of $1.86 per piece.
However, we are looking forward to WLFI's future actions.
