WLFI: A New DeFi Project Backed by the Trump Family

uo

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a DeFi project with close ties to the Trump family, has been making headlines with its frequent purchases of various crypto assets, including ETH, LINK, AAVE, ENA, and ONDO. These activities have sparked a follow-on craze in the market, rendering WLFI an indicator that cannot be overlooked in the crypto investment landscape.

But what exactly is WLFI, and how might its actions continue to influence the market? Let's delve deeper into these aspects.

1. Understanding WLFI

WLFI is a DeFi platform that enables users to borrow, lend, and invest in crypto assets, with the goal of becoming a tool for achieving financial independence. It was officially launched on the Aave V3 protocol on the Ethereum mainnet in September 2023.

The project's vision is to empower users to conduct private peer-to-peer transactions without relying on traditional financial intermediaries, thereby promoting the development of decentralized finance around the world, especially for those who are underserved by traditional banks. The Trump family has even hailed it as "the future of crypto DeFi."

As the governance token of World Liberty Financial, each WLFI grants its holder one vote in community proposals on the governance platform. However, it is worth noting that its initial distribution plan has been adjusted, shifting from over half being used for sales to a larger allocation for community and creator rewards, reflecting the changes in community incentives and the share of initial supporters.

Unlike other governance tokens such as UNI and MKR, WLFI does not confer economic rights, meaning that it is non-transferable after redemption. In other words, users cannot trade/exchange/sell WLFI after holding the token. While this may be subject to change through governance proposals in the future, it appears that the token will not be tradable for an extended period.

Perhaps due to its non-transferability and inability to provide short-term profit opportunities for cryptocurrency investors, WLFI has had low liquidity since its launch on October 15.

It is also crucial to note that WLFI is only available to users outside the United States and is not registered with any financial regulator. This means that U.S. residents cannot participate in trading these tokens, which may be considered to circumvent U.S. law enforcement supervision.

Considering its promotion method, to put it more bluntly, WLFI is a project under the influence of Trump that seeks to promote the use of US dollar stablecoins and DeFi applications, aiming to strengthen the position of the US dollar in the DeFi field.

Hence, we must explore how the Trump family supports this project.

1) Team members

According to the official information of WLFI, there is a passage that describes itself like this: Inspired by Trump, it promotes the large-scale adoption of stablecoins and DeFi, especially US dollar stablecoins, to ensure the dominance of the US dollar.

Donald Trump himself serves as the project’s “chief cryptocurrency advocate,” while his sons Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Barron Trump serve as Web3 ambassadors, helping to promote the platform and attract mainstream users.

In this context, according to the content of the white paper, DT Marks DEFI LLC (a company owned by Trump) agreed to promote WLFI and granted it the right to use the names and portraits of Trump family members for publicity. In return, WLFI paid Token to DT Marks DEFI LLC and shared part of the net income of the agreement (about 75%).

However, the Trump family has legally circumvented all ties with WLFI. Although WLFI claims to be "the only DeFi platform inspired by Trump", the Trump family's positions as advocates and ambassadors are not real positions involved in management, and there is a small text at the bottom of the official website:

Donald J. Trump, any of his family members, or any director, officer, or employee of the Trump Organization, DT Marks DEFI LLC, or their respective affiliates, is not an officer, director, founder, or employee of WLFI or its affiliates. … World Liberty Financial and its WLFI Token are not political in nature and are not part of any political campaign.

Therefore, some critics believe that WLFI is deeply tied to the Trump family and is a Trump family OEM product. Unknown traders use the Trump family's reputation to launch products, and the Trump family creates brands and gains profits. This is because such business operations are commonplace for the Trump family. For example, many Trump hotels or buildings named after Trump around the world are in cooperation with Trump in the form of licensing and OEM.

In general, although all kinds of propaganda say that WLFI is inextricably linked to the Trump family, there is actually no legal connection. This may be one of the reasons why people are not very convinced of WLFI.

In addition to the strong support of the Trump family, the WLFI team is composed of experienced encryption practitioners.

According to the official website, WLFI has five founders