Author: Aaron Wood, CoinTelegraph; Compiler: Deng Tong, Golden Finance
World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a cryptocurrency company associated with the family of U.S. President Donald Trump, debuted late last year and made a splash.
WLFI launched on the eve of the presidential inauguration, causing a stir. Observers accused the project of preempting important cryptocurrency-related events such as the White House Crypto Summit and posing a conflict of interest.
Trump is in a unique position to influence the outcome of his portfolio, but WLFI has not been immune to broader market trends, with token prices falling amid major macroeconomic concerns.
The Trump administration is about to enter its 100th day in office. Here's what's happening with WLFI and how the president's cryptocurrency investments have been affected.
WLFI's "gold paper" is printed with Trump's praise image. Source: WLFI
WLFI was established on September 16 last year when then-President-elect Donald Trump announced his entry into X. The company was founded by real estate magnate Steve Witkoff and his son Zach, along with crypto investor and self-proclaimed “internet asshole” Chase Herro and social media influencer and former pickup artist Zak Folkman.
The Trump family also features prominently. President Trump is listed as “Chief Crypto Advocate,” while his sons Eric, Donald Jr., and Barron are “Web3 Ambassadors.”
WLFI’s leadership team. Source: WLFI
One of World Liberty Financial’s first moves was to sell its own tokens. The initial token sale began on October 15, 2024, selling 20 billion WLFI $WLFI at $0.015, earning the company about $300 million.
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 $0.05, a 230% increase from the initial sale. The second sale was completed nearly two months later on March 14, reaching its full goal of $250 million.
According to the project’s “Gold Paper,” WLFI tokens will give holders voting rights on important matters affecting the protocol, such as upgrades. The expected token distribution is:
35% through token sales,
32.5% for incentives and community development,
30% for “initial supporters” allocation, and
2.5% for “core team and advisors.”
All in all, WLFI raked in $550 million in token sales. $WLFI is only available to accredited investors and, per the terms and conditions, may not be transferred or traded on exchanges. A listing date for the token has not yet been announced.
In addition to the token sale, WLFI has also acted as a crypto fund, accumulating a number of different tokens over the past few months. The details are as follows:
The WLFI portfolio consists of a variety of different assets, with 13 of them accounting for the largest share as of this writing. The majority of its holdings are in the U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin USDC, followed by Wrapped Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).
According to Arkham, the top 13 assets account for nearly $100 million of the firm's $103 million portfolio. The remaining value is made up of dozens of other tokens, some of which have a total value of less than $100,000.
WLFI owns $5 million worth of Aave Ethereum USDC (aethUSDC), meaning they provide USDC to the pool on Aave.
WLFI's portfolio consists of eight cryptocurrencies that are non-stablecoin assets that it purchased (rather than received through airdrops).
Wrapped BTC (WBTC)
Mantle (MNT)
Movement (MOVE)
Sei (SEI)
Avalanche (AVAX)
Tron (TRX)
Ondo (ONDO)
Ether (ETH)
Overall, WLFI’s holdings of WBTC, SEI, and AVAX performed the most successfully.
The first WBTC purchase took place on December 18, when WLFI exchanged 103 WBTC for 103 cbBTC. Nearly a month later, WLFI swapped all of its assets for ETH. The fund began accumulating WBTC again, mostly using USDT, which it sent to Coinbase Prime in early February.
WLFI bought AVAX in a single tranche on March 15, and bought nearly $6 million worth of SEI in three tranches in February, March, and April.
Others haven’t fared as well. As of April 24, major investments in MNT, MOVE, ONDO, and ETH all saw double-digit losses. MOVE was hit hard, and WLFI's total investment value fell by more than 50%, with an investment loss of approximately $2,100,000.
Considering the average price at which WLFI tokens were purchased and the current price of its assets, its investment lost an average of $4,280,000.
Notably, WLFI also deposited several early purchases of tokens into Coinbase Prime in December and January.
The WLFI wallet slowly accumulated ETH long before the main action began. WLFI began acquiring large sums worth over $1 million in late November and continued to do so every few days until December 21st. It then transferred all acquired ETH (including 3,700 ETH deposited in October) to Coinbase Prime on January 14th.
Between January 19th and January 21st, it purchased nearly 57,000 ETH and continued to acquire until February 3rd, when it transferred most of the ETH to Coinbase Prime. Coincidentally, Eric Trump was also promoting Ethereum on X at the time.
The odd timing of WLFI’s move of tokens to cryptocurrency exchanges and Eric Trump’s post raises questions about the Trump family’s ability to influence the tokens it holds.
In late March, a group of senators on the agency’s banking committee wrote an open letter urging regulators to consider potential conflicts of interest at WLFI, specifically the project’s stablecoin USD1.
USD1 was launched in early March and, as of press time, is being traded on centralized exchanges Kinesis Money and ChangeNOW, according to CoinMarketCap.
Senators are concerned that Trump is in a unique position to influence and benefit his own stablecoin project, especially with the stablecoin framework bill that Congress is about to consider.
After Trump announced the tariffs on "Liberation Day," the market plummeted, and the president posted on the right-wing social media platform Truth Social that "Now is a great time to buy!!" further sparking concerns about insider trading and market manipulation.
Despite these concerns, the Trump administration's ties to cryptocurrencies are growing. His administration has dropped several high-level enforcement cases against cryptocurrency companies, and his allies in Congress are drafting legislation that would benefit the industry.
Crypto companies appear confident in the project. On April 16, cryptocurrency market maker DWF Labs announced a $25 million investment in WLFI and agreed to provide it with $150 million in liquidity.
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