Markets everywhere are cheering Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, but World Liberty Financial tokens haven’t been so lucky.
The odds of a Trump win pushed the price of bitcoin to all-time highs overnight, and other tokens and public equities were higher by as much as 20% in Wednesday’s trading session. Yet fewer than 100,000 WLFI tokens — less than $1,500 — have been sold over the past 24 hours.
World Liberty Financial’s governance token WLFI has generated sales of $14.8 million since going live on Oct. 15, according to Dune Analytics. The majority, or about $10 million, was generated on their first day of sales alone – a far cry from the $300 million the DeFi project expected to raise.
In an SEC filing last week, the project said it was now only targeting a $30 million raise before terminating the sale. This form said 348 investors had participated and it had sold $2.7 million in the token sale by that point — likely referring only to accredited investors in the U.S. (while the token is also available to a broader range of investors outside the U.S.)
Onchain data shows the WLFI token has nearly 19,000 token holders among over 22,000 transactions, which are presumably all buy transactions as the token isn't yet transferable (at least not for a year following the sale).
Kenetic Capital co-founder Jehan Chu previously told The Block that the token sale's restrictions in the U.S. prevented retail investors from participating.
"I haven't seen anything interesting or unique about this aside from the fact that it has the Trump brand. I don’t think that’s enough for most people," Two Prime CEO Alexander Blume told The Block last month. "I think the crypto community was already pretty skeptical of this project before it was launched. It just seems opportunistic, particularly since it’s not doing anything new."
Meanwhile, decentralized finance tokens like Aave have surged over 24% in the last 24 hours, according to The Block’s price pages.
“Positive speculation around Aave’s price, specifically, may have been fueled by its partnership with the Trump-linked World Liberty Financial project,” The Block’s Brian McGleenon wrote earlier Wednesday. “On Oct. 9, World Liberty Financial submitted a proposal to AaveDAO requesting approval to launch its platform as an instance on Aave V3.”
World Liberty Financial proposed sharing 20% of its transaction fees and 7% of its governance token supply with AaveDAO.
In a 13-page "gold paper”, World Liberty Financial said that DT Marks DEFI LLC, connected to the Trump family, has a right to receive 75% of the net protocol revenues and $337.5 million in WLFI tokens at the token sale price. Kenetic’s Chu said this "created doubt in even the most die-hard supporters about the viability of the project from an investment standpoint."
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