Who Are the Key Decision-Makers Behind Trump Project WLFI's Massive $45 Million Token Buy-In?
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Who Are the Key Decision-Makers Behind Trump Project WLFI's Massive $45 Million Token Buy-In?
Given the current situation, the leadership team mostly consists of new faces, and the project's practicality and innovativeness still carry some uncertainty.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy Weilin, PANews
Trump's DeFi project, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), made significant purchases of crypto assets in December, spending nearly $45 million on ETH, cbBTC, LINK, AAVE, ENA, and most recently ONDO.
Launched in September, the project describes itself as a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform. On December 13, the World Liberty Financial community passed its first proposal to deploy an Aave v3 instance. While the project has achieved some initial progress, its leadership team consists largely of unfamiliar figures, and questions remain about its practical utility and innovation.
Massive Crypto Purchases in December: Total Spending Nears $45 Million
According to blockchain data platform Lookonchain, since November 30, World Liberty Financial has acquired substantial amounts of crypto assets through a single wallet—worth $30 million in Ethereum (ETH) and $10 million in Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC). Other purchased assets include LINK, AAVE, ENA, and the latest addition: $250,000 worth of Ondo tokens. Specific purchase details are as follows:
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Purchased 8,105 ETH for $30 million USDC at $3,701 per ETH;
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Purchased 103 cbBTC for $10 million USDC at $97,181 per cbBTC;
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Purchased 78,387 LINK for $2 million USDC at $25.50 per LINK;
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Purchased 6,137 AAVE for $2 million USDC at $326 per AAVE;
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Purchased 509,955 ENA for $500,000 USDC at $0.98 per ENA;
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Purchased 134,216 ONDO for $250,000 USDC at $1.86 per ONDO.
Additionally, although COW is not listed among World Liberty Financial’s holdings, recent token purchases on-chain were executed via Cowswap—one of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s preferred DEXs.
World Liberty Financial launched in September, branding itself as a DeFi platform for cryptocurrency trading, naming President-elect Trump as its "Chief Crypto Advocate," with his sons Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Barron Trump serving as "Ambassadors." Companies affiliated with the Trump family are entitled to 75% of net revenues generated by the project.
The project has struggled to sell its namesake token, World Liberty Financial (WLFI). According to its roadmap, the fully diluted valuation was set at $1.5 billion, with the "initial sale" aiming to raise $300 million by selling 20% of the total token supply. However, as of December 17, 4.99 billion WLFI tokens had been sold at $0.015 each, raising only $74.85 million—less than a quarter of its target. Notably, Justin Sun disclosed a $30 million investment in WLFI, making him the project’s largest known investor. No other institutional investments have been publicly announced.
WLFI Community Approves First Proposal: Aave v3 Lending Instance to Be Deployed
On a positive note, on December 13, the World Liberty Financial governance page showed that the WLFI community voted to approve its first proposal—to deploy an Aave v3 lending instance on the Ethereum mainnet.
As of December 16, Aave DAO held a treasury valued at $347 million. Initially, when World Liberty Financial announced it would build on the Aave protocol, the Aave community expressed skepticism. However, attitudes shifted in October after World Liberty Financial proposed allocating 7% of its WLFI tokens and 20% of future fees generated by WLF to Aave DAO, the collective governing the Aave protocol.
The proposal recommends deploying a World Liberty Financial (WLF)-branded Aave v3 instance, with key objectives including:
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Providing stablecoin liquidity for ETH and WBTC.
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Expanding Aave’s user base.
The deployment requires approval from both AaveDAO and the WLF community. If approved, users will be able to deposit USDC and USDT stablecoins, as well as ETH and wBTC, into the protocol as collateral to borrow other assets on Aave.
The proposal states that benefits for Aave include attracting significant new users and liquidity, building brand awareness and loyalty among new DeFi users, and reinforcing Aave’s leading position in the digital asset lending market.
The next steps for the proposal are: 1. Conduct a temperature check to reach preliminary consensus; 2. Proceed to Snapshot voting if consensus is reached; 3. Publish a standard ARFC and gather feedback from the community and service providers; 4. If the ARFC passes Snapshot voting, proceed to an AIP vote for final confirmation and execution.
Unfamiliar Faces Lead WLFI: Who Are They?
Behind Trump’s DeFi project are several individuals largely unknown within the crypto space. In addition to Trump and his family members, the project lists five co-founders: Chase Herro, Zak Folkman, Steven Witkoff, Zach Witkoff, and Alex Witkoff.
Chase Herro stands out due to his unconventional background. Reports indicate he previously engaged in businesses seemingly unrelated to crypto—such as marijuana sales and weight-loss products—and frequently flaunted luxury cars and private jet travel on social media, though he lacks credibility in the crypto industry. The only crypto project he openly participated in, Dough Finance, attracted only a few million dollars and suffered a major hack. A token he promoted on influencer Logan Paul’s podcast dropped 96% shortly after promotion. In a 2018 speech, he referred to himself as “scum of the internet” and said regulators should “kick people like me out.”
Another co-founder, Zak Folkman—Chase Herro’s business partner—ran a service called Date Hotter Girls, where he taught seminars on how to approach women, drawing controversy over his background.
Steven Witkoff is a longtime friend of Trump and a real estate developer who donated $2 million to Trump’s presidential campaign. After Trump’s victory, he was appointed as a Middle East envoy. His sons, Alex and Zach Witkoff, are listed as co-founders of World Liberty Financial.
Beyond these less-crypto-native co-founders, the leaders overseeing specific operational areas have more professional and relevant backgrounds in the crypto industry.
Rich Teo, head of stablecoins and payments, is a crypto OG who co-founded exchange itBit in 2012 and later co-founded Paxos, a stablecoin company, where he currently serves as CEO for Asia. Rich also acts as an advisor to RepubliK, an AI-driven SocialFi project, and has shared numerous posts about it on X.
Corey Caplan serves as Head of Technology Strategy. He is a co-founder of Dolomite, a DeFi platform launched on Arbitrum One in October 2022, which has since expanded to other blockchain ecosystems including Polygon’s zkEVM, Mantle, and X Layer, offering services such as margin trading, lending, and portfolio management.
Bogdan Purnavel is the Chief Developer, formerly a developer at Dough Finance under the online alias 0xboga. The blockchain lead at World Liberty Financial is Octavian Lojnita. According to his public profile, he is a full-stack developer from Romania who previously worked at Dough Finance.
Alex Golubitsky serves as legal counsel. An international tax attorney, his career spans tax law, securities regulation, entity formation, contract drafting, and litigation. He is a partner at MetaLeX Pro, LLP, and General Counsel at Brisa Max Holdings VI, LLC.
In addition, World Liberty Financial has assembled an advisory board comprising venture capitalists, lawyers, and blockchain engineers. Sandy Peng, co-founder of Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain Scroll, and Luke Pearson, General Partner at Polychain Capital, are among the project’s advisors.
So far, World Liberty Financial’s aggressive token buying spree has drawn mixed reactions.
Nicolai Søndergaard, research analyst at Nansen, told Bloomberg that the purchases might be “an attempt to gain more trust, or to boost their own project by drawing attention to these assets—if they perform well, World Liberty Financial could benefit as well.”
While World Liberty Financial’s plans may sound innovative to those unfamiliar with crypto, startups like this are actually quite common, and very few succeed, said Tarun Chitra, General Partner at Robot Ventures.
Overall, the Trump family’s DeFi initiative, World Liberty Financial, has demonstrated ambition in the crypto space through large-scale asset acquisitions and collaboration with Aave. Its investment choices may become a signal watched by investors. However, with an unfamiliar leadership team and uncertain practical value or innovation, the project remains speculative. Nonetheless, as a venture backed by the so-called “crypto president’s” family, it will continue to attract significant market attention, warranting ongoing observation.
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