The launch of World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the Trump family’s cryptoasset project, is a resounding failure: the company, which presents itself as a tool to “revolutionize finance”It has only attracted just over 13 million euros of investment since its launch on Tuesday, October 15. Their goal was to raise 300 million. “Pre-sales”, limited private sales, are generally a key element in evaluating the future success of a crypto asset: successful projects usually manage to sell 100% of the shares within a few hours.
Earlier this week, WLFI opened the sale of its $WLFI token to pre-registered investors, who had to pass an identification procedure and prove their income in order to purchase the token. But as soon as the sale opened, the project’s website crashed and has been intermittently inaccessible ever since, calling into question the technical capabilities of its administrators.
Beyond these difficulties, the project, supported by the Trump organization (the holding company of the former president’s family) and a diverse group of businessmen, arouses great distrust even in the cryptoasset community. On the one hand because the $WLFI tokens cannot, at the moment, be resold, which limits their speculative interest; on the other hand, because the project itself remains particularly opaque.
Questionable businessmen
WLFI is presented as a loan system guaranteed by cryptocurrencies that promises much more advantageous conditions than those of banks. But its exact workings have not yet been detailed and its “white paper,” a fundamental document of any crypto project that explains asset distribution, was not published online until Thursday morning. The text reveals that most of the possible benefits of the project will go directly to the Trump family.
The profile of the team responsible for the project also raised many questions. Two of the main co-founders, Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman, have important responsibilities: the subject of several complaints in the United States, in particular for fraud, they were also administrators of a previous crypto platform for decentralized loans, Dough Finance, which was the victim of a hack in July: $1.8 million was stolen from him.
In the medium term, other risks also loom over this crypto asset. If Donald Trump is elected US president in November, the billionaire would find himself at the center of a major conflict of interest, as his administration would be responsible for regulating decentralized financial products, such as WLFI. A situation that could be the origin of multiple procedures, during and after his mandate.
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