World Liberty Financial (WLFI) Political Empowerment and Financial Ambitions
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
World Liberty Financial (WLFI) Political Empowerment and Financial Ambitions
WLFI, a cryptocurrency project strongly associated with the Trump family, has drawn market attention with its asset allocation strategy, giving rise to the concept of "President's Pick."
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: BitMart Research
1. Project Background
1. Project Introduction
WLFI is a DeFi project supported by the Trump family of the U.S. presidency, officially launched in September 2024. Its core goal is to promote the widespread adoption of stablecoins, reinforce the dominance of the U.S. dollar within the global financial system, and leverage cryptocurrency technology to fulfill the vision of "Make America Great Again." WLFI is positioned as a DeFi lending platform, initially operating on the Ethereum network and utilizing mature DeFi protocols (such as Aave v3) to optimize user experience, rather than launching entirely new financial instruments.
On December 13, 2024, the World Liberty Financial community passed its first proposal, successfully deploying an Aave v3 instance. Although WLFI has made initial progress, many of the project team's co-founders are relatively unknown figures, and its long-term viability and innovative potential remain unproven.
On February 12, 2025, WLFI announced the launch of its "Macro Strategy," aiming to establish a strategic token reserve supporting leading cryptocurrency projects such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. This strategy will help WLFI enhance stability, drive growth, build trust, and collaborate with traditional financial institutions to advance asset tokenization. WLFI is partnering with multiple financial institutions to incorporate their tokenized assets into reserves, providing transparency via publicly accessible blockchain wallets. Additionally, WLFI will jointly conduct marketing and branding initiatives with partner institutions to demonstrate leadership in financial innovation.
2. Team Information
Role of the Trump Family
-
Donald J. Trump: Listed as "Chief Crypto Advocate," responsible for endorsing the project but not involved in technical or operational matters.
-
Eric Trump & Donald Trump Jr. & Barron Trump: Serve as "Web3 Ambassadors," primarily responsible for project promotion and outreach.
Core Co-Founders
-
Chase Herro and Zak Folkman: Jointly lead operations, though their backgrounds have drawn controversy due to limited experience in the crypto industry. Chase Herro was previously involved in marijuana sales and promoting controversial tokens; Zak Folkman founded a male dating coaching company.
-
The Witkoff Family: Real estate developer Steven Witkoff and his sons Zach and Alex, closely associated with the Trump family. Steven donated $2 million to Trump’s presidential campaign and was later appointed as Middle East envoy after Trump’s election victory.
Core Technical Personnel
-
Rich Teo: Head of Stablecoins and Payments, previously founded the exchange itBit and stablecoin firm Paxos, currently serving as CEO of Paxos Asia. Rich also serves as an advisor to the SocialFi project RepubliK.
-
Corey Caplan: Head of Technology Strategy, co-founder of the DeFi platform Dolomite, responsible for integrating lending and trading functionalities.
-
Bogdan Purnavel: Chief Developer, formerly a developer at Dough Finance.
Advisory Team
-
Alexei Dulub: Founder of Web3 Antivirus, blockchain security expert, active in L1/L2 development since 2013.
-
Sandy Peng: Co-founder of Ethereum Layer 2 network Scroll, providing scalability support.
-
Sun Yuchen (Justin Sun): Serves as strategic advisor and largest investor (with a $75 million investment), driving ecosystem collaboration with TRON.
Source:WLFI Official Website
2. Funding Sources and Token Utility
WLFI raised funds through the sale of WLFI tokens, totaling $455 million as of February 9 (source: WLFI Official Website). The first public sale of 21.3 billion tokens was priced at $0.015 per token and fully sold out, raising $319 million. In the second round, the price was increased to $0.05 per token, raising $136 million as of February 9. The total value of purchased crypto assets held by WLFI is estimated at approximately $325.8 million, including ETH, WBTC, DeFi, and RWA projects. However, it is important to note that this project does not operate like a fund—issuing WLFI tokens to raise capital, investing in high-potential mainstream projects, and distributing portfolio gains to WLFI holders. The project whitepaper explicitly states that WLFI tokens are governance-only and do not entitle holders to any share of investment returns. Although WLFI defines itself as a DeFi lending platform, it has not yet commenced operations or offered any DeFi services, meaning WLFI tokens currently hold no intrinsic value or utility.
3. Total Holdings
As of February 2025, WLFI's total asset value is estimated at approximately $327 million, with on-chain assets valued at around $37.79 million and centralized exchange holdings (if unsold) valued at about $289 million (deposited with Coinbase Prime for fund management and operational purposes).
WLFI On-Chain Assets (source: ARKM)
WLFI CoinbasePrime Assets (source: SpotonChain)
4. Holdings Structure Analysis
As a crypto project strongly linked to the Trump family, WLFI’s asset allocation strategy has attracted market attention and given rise to the concept of “President’s Picks.” As of February 2025, ETH holds a dominant position in WLFI’s crypto portfolio (63.8%), followed by WBTC (16.4%), with the remainder allocated across DeFi and RWA sectors. Notably, despite the declining ETH/BTC exchange rate since December 2024, WLFI has chosen to accumulate ETH against the trend, highlighting its bet on the foundational value of the Ethereum ecosystem. In terms of sector selection, WLFI focuses on top-tier projects: in DeFi, it has invested in oracle leader Chainlink (LINK) and lending protocol Aave (AAVE); in the RWA space, it has taken significant positions in tokenized U.S. Treasury protocol Ondo Finance (ONDO) and synthetic dollar protocol Ethena (ENA), forming a combination of “established protocols + emerging protocols.”
In external collaborations, WLFI has formed a deep alliance with TRON founder Justin Sun, whose affiliated addresses via HTX have cumulatively invested $75 million, making him the largest institutional investor. This also explains WLFI’s holdings in TRX and WBTC.
In fund management, WLFI recently transferred $307.4 million in assets to Coinbase Prime for custody and unstaked 19,400 stETH for liquidity management. The project currently holds $47.49 million in stablecoin reserves, with future allocations likely focusing on three directions: 1) supplementing core asset holdings; 2) investing in emerging RWA protocols; 3) funding ecosystem partnership expenses.
1. Ethereum (ETH)
-
ETH: 78,610 tokens ($209 million, 63.8% of portfolio).
2. DeFi
-
AAVE: 16,585 tokens ($4.091 million, 1.2%)
-
LINK: 219,000 tokens ($4.117 million, 1.3%)
3. RWA
-
ENA: 4,941,000 tokens ($2.47 million, 0.8%)
-
ONDO: 456,000 tokens ($612,000, 0.001%)
4. Justin Sun-Related Assets
-
WBTC: 553 tokens ($53.648 million, 16.4%)
-
TRX: 40.71 million tokens ($9.772 million, 3%)
5. Other Assets
-
USDC: 37.54 million tokens ($37.54 million, 11.5%)
-
USDT: 4.37 million tokens ($4.14 million, 1.3%)
-
MOVE: 3.68 million tokens ($1.989 million, 0.3%)
5. WLFI Project Logic Analysis: Political Empowerment and Financial Ambition
1. Financialization of Political Capital: The Trump Family’s Fundraising Tool
Judging from WLFI’s tokenomics model, as much as 75% of sales revenue goes directly to the Trump family. While the project’s legal structure deliberately avoids direct association with Donald Trump himself, it strengthens political linkage through public endorsements by family members (e.g., Eric Trump). This design effectively converts Trump’s political influence into a quantifiable financial asset, making WLFI less a genuine decentralized finance product and more a political fundraising instrument. The market widely views WLFI as a proxy bet on the prospects of Trump’s crypto policy agenda. Investors purchasing the token are essentially indirectly funding Trump’s political campaigns. This model resembles Trump’s earlier Trump MEME token, both serving as alternative fundraising channels beyond traditional political donations.
2. Market Sentiment Manipulation: Dual Operation of Capital and Narrative
The project can leverage Trump’s political influence to generate market sentiment for itself and affiliated projects. For example, after receiving investment from Justin Sun, WLFI made large purchases of TRX and WBTC, currently holding assets worth approximately $63.41 million. As of February 9, Justin Sun had invested $75 million, with 84.5% of those funds used to buy tokens linked to his own ecosystem. Moreover, WLFI co-founder Chase Herro recently stated plans to use acquired tokens to build a “strategic reserve.” While specific goals and motivations were not disclosed, this topic has remained prominent since Trump promised during his campaign last year to establish such a reserve. Last month, Trump signed an executive order directing an assessment of the feasibility of creating a digital asset reserve. Against this backdrop, WLFI’s plan to build a strategic reserve undoubtedly reinforces market expectations around the “President’s Picks” narrative. By deeply aligning with Trump’s crypto policies, WLFI not only shapes market expectations and attracts more capital inflows but may also facilitate off-exchange collaborations between project insiders and political capital, further expanding its market influence.
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
@BitMart_zh
