Author: Aaron Wood, CoinTelegraph; Translated by: Deng Tong, Jinse Finance.
The cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial (WLFI), linked to USA President Donald Trump’s family, made its debut at the end of last year and caused a sensation.
WLFI was launched on the eve of the presidential inauguration, causing a stir. Observers accused the project of prematurely reporting on important crypto-related events such as the White House cryptocurrency summit, raising concerns about conflicts of interest.
Trump is in a unique position to influence the outcomes of his portfolio, but WLFI has also not been immune to broader market trends, with the token price declining under significant macroeconomic concerns.
The Trump administration is about to reach its first hundred days in office. Here are the dynamics of WLFI and how the President's cryptocurrency investments are being affected.
The founder and ownership of the Trump crypto investment WLFI project.
WLFI was established on September 16 last year, when the elected president Donald Trump announced the move into X. The company was founded under the guidance of real estate mogul Steve Witkoff and his son Zach, with co-founders including cryptocurrency investor and self-proclaimed "internet jerk" Chase Herro, as well as social media influencer and former pickup artist Zak Folkman.
The Trump family also holds a significant position. President Trump is listed as the "Chief Cryptocurrency Advocate," while his sons Eric, Don Jr., and Barron are referred to as "Web3 Ambassadors."
The leadership team of WLFI. Source: WLFI
WLFI Token Sale
One of the first initiatives of World Liberty Financial is to sell its own tokens. The first token sale will start on October 15, 2024, selling 20 billion WLFI tokens at a price of 0.015 USD, earning the company approximately 0.3 billion USD.
On January 20, 2025, the day of Trump's inauguration, WLFI announced a second token sale citing "huge demand and strong interest." The company issued 5 billion tokens at a price of 0.05 USD, which was a 230% increase from the initial sale price. The second sale was completed on March 14, nearly two months later, reaching a total goal of 0.25 billion USD.
According to the project's "Golden Book," WLFI tokens will grant holders voting rights on important matters that affect the protocol (such as upgrades). The anticipated token distribution is:
35% through token sales,
32.5% for incentives and community development,
30% is allocated for "initial supporters",
"core team and advisors" account for 2.5%.
In summary, WLFI achieved a token sale of 0.55 billion USD. $WLFI is only for qualified investors and is not transferable or traded on Exchanges according to the terms and conditions. The listing date for the token has not been announced.
WLFI's Portfolio
In addition to token sales, WLFI also acts as a crypto Fund, accumulating many different tokens over the past few months. The specifics are as follows:
WLFI's portfolio contains a variety of different Assets, with 13 of them holding the largest share as of the time of writing. Most of their Holdings are USD-backed stablecoin USDC, followed by Wrapped Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).
According to Arkham, the top 13 Assets account for nearly 0.1 billion USD of the company's 0.103 billion USD portfolio. The remainder consists of dozens of Other tokens, some of which have a total value of less than 100,000 USD.
WLFI holds Aave Ethereum USDC (aethUSDC) worth 5 million USD, which means they provide USDC to the liquidity pool on Aave.
WLFI's portfolio includes eight types of cryptos, which are non-stablecoin assets that were purchased (rather than received through airdrop).
Wrapped BTC (WBTC)
Mantle (MNT)
Movement (MOVE)
Sei (SEI)
Avalanche (AVAX)
Tron (TRX)
Ondo (ONDO)
Ether (ETH)
Overall, the performance of WBTC, SEI, and AVAX held by WLFI was the most successful.
The first purchase of WBTC occurred on December 18, when WLFI exchanged 103 WBTC for 103 cbBTC. Almost a month later, WLFI converted all assets into ETH. The Fund began accumulating WBTC again, mainly using USDT, and sent it to Coinbase Prime in early February.
WLFI made a one-time purchase of AVAX on March 15 and bought SEI worth nearly 6 million USD in three transactions in February, March, and April.
Other performances were not as good. As of April 24, major investments in MNT, MOVE, ONDO, and ETH had all shown double-digit losses. MOVE was hit hard, and WLFI's total investment value fell by more than 50%, with investment losses of about 2,100,000 USD.
Considering the average price of WLFI token purchases and the current prices of its assets, the average investment loss is 4,280,000 USD.
It is worth noting that WLFI also deposited several early purchased tokens into Coinbase Prime in December and January.
As early as before the main actions began, the WLFI wallet slowly accumulated ETH. WLFI began acquiring large amounts of funds worth over 1 million USD from late November and continued to do so every few days until December 21. It then transferred all acquired ETH (including 3,700 ETH deposited in October) to Coinbase Prime on January 14.
From January 19 to January 21, it purchased nearly 57,000 ETH and continued to acquire until February 3, when it transferred most of the ETH to Coinbase Prime. Coincidentally, Eric Trump was also promoting Ethereum on X at that time.
Conflicts of interest and stablecoins.
The strange timing of WLFI transferring tokens to the crypto Exchange and Eric Trump's posts raised questions about the Trump family's influence over the tokens they Hold.
At the end of March, a group of senators from the institution's banking committee wrote an open letter urging regulators to consider WLFI's potential conflicts of interest, particularly regarding the project's stablecoin USD1.
According to CoinMarketCap, USD1 was launched in early March and, as of the time of writing, has been traded on centralized Exchanges Kinesis Money and ChangeNOW.
Senators are concerned that Trump is in a unique position to influence and benefit his own stablecoin project, especially with the stablecoin framework bill soon to be reviewed by Congress.
After announcing an increase in tariffs on 'Liberation Day,' the market crashed, and the president posted on the right-wing Social Media platform Truth Social, saying, 'Now is a good time to Buy!!' further raising concerns about insider trading and market manipulation.
Despite these concerns, the Trump administration's ties to Cryptos are strengthening. His administration has dismissed several high-profile enforcement cases against crypto companies, and his allies in Congress are drafting legislation favorable to the Industry.
Cryptocurrency companies seem to be very confident in the project. On April 16, cryptocurrency market maker DWF Labs announced an investment of 25 million USD in WLFI and agreed to provide it with 0.15 billion USD in liquidity.
Editor/Rocky
