x
World Liberty Financial, the crypto project backed by President Donald Trump and his family, made a much-awaited move on Sep. 1 as WLFI, its native token, made its public debut for trading.
With a market capitalization of $7 billion, WLFI is already the 31st largest token as per CoinGecko.
Related: What are meme coins? Explained
Founded in 2024, World Liberty Financial is a decentralized finance (DeFi) project backed by the Trump family. Trump himself is a co-founder, though the website says he was removed from the position upon taking office. His sons, Donald Jr., Eric, and Barron, are also among the project's co-founders.
President Trump's old pal and the U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steven Witkoff — who also quit the position upon taking the office — and his sons, Zach and Alex, are also among the project's co-founders.
World Liberty Financial's WLFI has already raised $550 million from two rounds of token offerings.
USD1, the stablecoin launched by the project, is one of the prominent players in the sector, which has a market cap of more than $2 billion as per DeFiLlama.
Donald Trump Jr., Trump's eldest child and the project's co-founder, called it a "big day" and said WLFI isn't merely a meme coin but the governance backbone of a real ecosystem.
"Freedom + finance + America FIRST."
Notably, President Trump and his wife, Melania, had launched the eponymous meme coins ahead of the presidential inauguration, both of which have since tanked spectacularly.
Eric Trump, Trump's third child and the project's co-founder, hailed the launch,
"Our team has always believed in American strength and leadership... This is a huge moment for the future of money!"
Justin Sun, the billionaire founder of the Tron blockchain project, said he believes it will be "one of the biggest and most important projects in crypto."
Sun invested $75 million into the Trump family's crypto project in November 2024. Later, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Tron, and Sun jointly requested the court to stay a case for the alleged sale of unregistered crypto securities that was filed in March 2023.
The USD1 stablecoin also made its public debut on the Tron network. Sun added that the total circulation of the stablecoin on Tron will be increased to $200 million to celebrate the launch of the WLFI token.
As reported earlier, Sun was also the wealthiest guest at the private dinner gala Trump hosted for the top holders of the TRUMP meme coin. He bought over $40 million worth of the coin to attend the private dinner.
As per CoinGecko, the token's price fell 13% in 24 hours to trade at $0.2452 at press time after becoming available for trading.
The token was hit with massive liquidations as positions worth $21 million got wiped out within the last 24 hours, as per Coinglass. $12.22 million in long and $6.91 million in short WLFI positions got liquidated during the period.
It means those betting on the token's price to go up were forced to liquidate their long positions and those betting on the price to go down also liquidated their short positions, as WLFI's price declined.
World Liberty Financial published a blog on Sep. 1, which shed light on WLFI's circulating supply at launch.
While the token's total supply is 100 billion, its initial circulating supply at launch is 24.6 billion.
10 billion - Unlocked ecosystem portion for World Liberty Financial, Inc.
7.78 billion - Alt5 Sigma Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTS), a WLFI treasury company
2.88 billion - Liquidity and marketing purposes
4 billion (approximately) - Public sale participants
The rest of the tokens are distributed in this manner:
19.9 billion - Treasury
33.5 billion - Team
16 billion - Public Sale (locked)
5.8 billion - Strategic Partners
As per WLFI’s token unlock agreement, 20% of the tokens purchased in the $0.015 and $0.05 sales rounds will be unlocked immediately, providing a direct reward for the earliest supporters.
Such early WLFI holders would have generated returns worth hundreds of times if they sold their tokens on the launch day.
The on-chain analyst Lookonchain highlighted many presale participants sending their WLFI tokens to exchanges.
World Liberty Financial itself sold 2 million USD1 tokens to buy 6.5 million WLFI tokens, the analyst shared.
Popular investor, known as @theionicXBT on X, slammed the token launch and said the only winners are those with presale allocations and those who shorted the tokens at high prices. They added:
"Everyone else is just exit liquidity... If you’re not early, you’re food."
Kashif Raza, a popular crypto analyst, warned against buying something where insiders are waiting to dump on new retail traders.
On Aug. 11, ALT5 Sigma announced raising $1.5 billion via the sale of its shares to create a WLFI treasury. Both Eric Trump and Zach Witkoff joined the firm's board.
As per the SEC filing, World Liberty Financial was the lead investor in ALT5 as the Trump-backed firm bought 1 million ALTS shares for $750 million.
The Wall Street Journal referred to it as a "circular transaction" in a report on Sep. 1, saying the same party as buyer and seller is more common in the crypto world than in traditional finance.
1. What is World Liberty Financial?
World Liberty Financial is a crypto project launched in 2024, the native token of which is WLFI. It also issues USD1, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar.
2. How is the Trump family related to World Liberty Financial?
President Donald Trump and his sons, Donald Jr., Eric, and Barron, are among the project's co-founders.
3. When did World Liberty Financial launch its native token for trading?
WLFI, the project's native token, made its trading debut on Sep. 1.
4. What is the circulating supply of WLFI tokens?
WLFI's circulating supply at launch is 24.6 billion.
