Original author: 0xjs
Reprinted by: Lawrence
Since former US President Trump fully turned to encryption, industry insiders have heard Trump's remarks in support of encryption.
However, since September 2024, Trump has personally supported the DeFi project World Liberty Financial, and even posted promotional articles from time to time on his official account with nearly 100 million followers, which still amazed people in the industry.
Not only that, well-known institutions and projects in the crypto industry are also constantly involved. For example, Luke Pearson of Polychain Capital, Sandy Peng of Scroll, Ryan Fang of Tomo Wallet and Rich Teo of Paxos have all become consultants or team members of World Liberty Financial.
On the evening of October 15, 2024, World Liberty Financial officially started its public sale, and the veil of World Liberty Financial finally surfaced.
Golden Finance reporters have taken an in-depth look at World Liberty Financial and summarized everything you need to know about World Liberty Financial.
What is World Liberty Financial?
According to World Liberty Financial's official information, World Liberty Financial describes itself as follows: Inspired by Trump, it promotes the large-scale adoption of stablecoins and DeFi, especially US dollar stablecoins, thereby ensuring the dominance of the US dollar. A key part of World Liberty Financial is to use the global influence and popularity of the Trump brand to bring as many Web2 users as possible into the Web3 world.
Therefore, World Liberty Financial will be a DeFi platform where users can borrow and lend cryptocurrencies, create liquidity pools, and trade using stablecoins.
According to World Liberty Financial's proposal on the Aave Governance Forum, World Liberty Financial requested a temperature check on the motion to deploy an Aave V3 instance, which will allow four cryptocurrencies, USDC, USDT, ETH and WBTC, to be used as collateral for lending. World Liberty Financial will provide 7% of its token supply to Aave DAO (worth $105 million) for governance and liquidity provision, and will also provide 20% of the fees generated by its platform on an ongoing basis.
According to public information, the first phase of World Liberty Financial is to launch a version of Aave on the Ethereum Layer 2 network Scroll, allowing users to lend and borrow tokens.
World Liberty Financial is deeply tied to the Trump family
When people talk about World Liberty Financial, they usually add a prefix, that is, "World Liberty Financial supported by the Trump family."
This is so because World Liberty Financial is deeply tied to the Trump family.
Trump has repeatedly posted on social media to promote World Liberty Financial, and called himself the "Chief Crypto Advocate" of the World Liberty Financial project.
Trump's two eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Donald, serve as "Web 3 Ambassadors" of World Liberty Financial, and his 18-year-old youngest son, Barron Trump, is the "DeFi visionary" of World Liberty Financial.
Although World Liberty Financial is deeply tied to the Trump family, from all indications, World Liberty Financial is more like an OEM product of the Trump family. The Trump family creates the brand and earns profits, while unknown traders use the Trump family's reputation to launch products.
This seems to be a common business operation for the Trump family. For example, many Trump hotels and buildings named after Trump around the world are licensed and OEM cooperation with Trump. In addition to real estate, Trump has also continuously authorized Trump's naming rights to other fields such as perfume, steak and mineral water. Trump's daughter Ivanka is also a frequent OEM customer.
World Liberty Financial, suspected OEM
According to the World Liberty Financial white paper, DT Marks DEFI LLC agrees to make reasonable efforts to require the owners and principals of DT Marks DEFI LLC, including Donald Trump, to occasionally promote WLF and World Liberty Financial protocols, and grants World Liberty Financial and its related entities the right and license to use the name and portrait of the owner of DT Marks DEFI for publicity (grant WLF and certain related parties the right and license to use the name image and likeness of the owners and principals of DT Marks DEFI LLC).
And this is indeed the case. Trump's photo appears on 11 of the 13 pages of World Liberty Financial's white paper, and World Liberty Financial is also endorsed by the Trump family.
World Liberty Financial white paper cover
In return, World Liberty Financial agreed that DT Marks DEFI LLC would receive 22.5 billion WLFI tokens and would be entitled to receive 75% of the net revenues of the agreement, which would be determined after deducting agreed operating expenses and initial treasury reserves. The service agreement can be terminated by DT Marks DEFI LLC for "good cause" under certain conditions or by non-renewal at the expiration of the initial 5-year term.
DT Marks DEFI LLC is a Delaware limited liability company (Trump is one of the owners), and its affiliated entities have received or may receive compensation for services provided to World Liberty Financial and its affiliates. These services are provided pursuant to a service agreement with Axiom Management Group, LLC ("AMG"), a Puerto Rico limited liability company wholly owned by Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman, and World Liberty Financial was formed under the direction of AMG's principals. AMG is entitled to receive 7.5 billion WLFI tokens and 25% of the net proceeds of the agreement, but has agreed to allocate 50% of them to WC Digital Fi LLC, an affiliate of Steve Witkoff and some of his family members.
Take another look at the World Liberty Financial team members.
World Liberty Financial co-founders Chase Herro and Zak Folkman own AMG and can obtain half of the 7.5 billion WLFI tokens and 25% of the net income of the World Liberty Financial protocol. The other half of the tokens and protocol income will go to the family of another co-founder Steven Witkoff (co-founders Steven Witkoff, Zach Witkoff, Alex Witkoff).
The man behind World Liberty Financial
Although World Liberty Financial co-founders Chase Herro and Zak Folkman have worked in the crypto industry, they are not well-known in the crypto world.
According to CoinDesk, Chase Herro and Zak Folkman previously developed the DeFi product Dough Finance, but it failed to gain attention and was hacked in the summer of 2024, losing $2 million. Chase Herro and Zak Folkman also co-founded the creator platform Subify, which claims to be an uncensored competitor to well-known creator platforms Patreon and OnlyFans in the industry. Folkman earlier registered a company called Date Hotter Girls LLC and posted content on YouTube on how to pick up women.
The head of blockchain at World Liberty Financial is Octavian Lojnita. According to Octavian Lojnitaâs online resume, he is from Romania and is a full-stack developer. Octavian Lojnita previously worked at Dough Finance. Boga, an anonymous front-end developer at World Liberty Financial, is listed as an author in Dough Financeâs source code (under 0xboga).
Coindesk also reported that World Liberty Financial had published a code repository on GitHub that was later deleted. A review of its code repository showed that World Liberty Financial (at least in the early stages) appeared to have copied code directly from Dough Finance.
However, World Liberty Financial posted on X on September 4, 2024, stating that World Liberty Financial did not want to take any risks and that its code "had been thoroughly reviewed by auditing companies such as BlockSec, Fuzzland, PeckShield, and Zokyo."
Although World Liberty Financial has started selling governance tokens WLFI to the public on its official website, the World Liberty Financial protocol and application have not yet been launched. It is not yet confirmed whether subsequent versions of World Liberty Financial will contain early code or vulnerabilities from Dough Finance.
The other three co-founders of World Liberty Financial are Steven Witkoff and his family. According to public information, Steven Witkoff is a well-known real estate developer and an old friend of Trump.
WLFI Token Information
WLFI Token Price: $0.015
Total public sale: 20 billion (equivalent to $300 million)
Sold: Only 723 million (about $10 million) sold as of press time, with 19.2 billion left to sell
Total Tokens: 100 billion
FDV: $1.5 billion
Contract address: 0xda5e1988097297dcdc1f90d4dfe7909e847cbef6
WLFI Token Distribution:
35% Token Sale: A significant percentage of WLFI tokens will be distributed to eligible participants through the token sale, enabling them to participate broadly in the decision-making and growth of the WLF protocol.
32.5% Community Growth and Incentives: This portion will be reserved for expanding the governance participation of the WLF community and supporting the construction of the WLF protocol.
30% initial supporter allocation: This part of the tokens is allocated to initial supporters (22.5 billion + 7.5 billion, which has been allocated to Trump and the World Liberty Financial trading team).
2.5% Team and Advisors: This portion of tokens will be used to reward the core team, advisors, service providers, and those who contribute to the development of the WLF protocol
There is another special thing about the World Liberty Financial token WLFI: the token status is non-transferable and locked in the wallet or smart contract indefinitely. Users should treat the purchase of WLFI tokens as other non-refundable purchases of goods and services.
World Liberty Financial claims that if it wishes to unlock the transferability of WLFI through the protocol governance process in the future, such unlocking will only be allowed if it is determined that it does not violate applicable laws and must be more than 12 months after the completion of the token sale. WLFI holders should assume that the tokens are not transferable indefinitely. World Liberty Financial also does not plan to create a secondary market for WLFI tokens.
The reason why WLFI tokens are non-transferable may be to circumvent regulation. This move is intended to make WLFI look less like a security in the eyes of regulators because it makes the asset difficult to buy and sell like other crypto tokens.
In addition to the non-transfer of tokens, World Liberty Financial's traders are highly skilled and have taken a number of actions in advance to evade supervision by US law enforcement agencies.
How WLFI tokens circumvent US regulation
First of all, it is about the requirements for investors. Given Trump's huge influence in the United States, World Liberty Financial first targets Americans. World Liberty Financial requires Americans who participate in the investment to be "qualified investors" as defined in Regulation D and to undergo KYC procedures. Overseas investors are also required to undergo KYC and offer and sell tokens in a manner that complies with the safe harbor conditions set forth in Section 506(c) of the Securities Act.
Secondly, in terms of token utility. According to the official website of World Liberty Financial, World Liberty Financial has made special treatment for the utility of its WLFI tokens, requiring WLFI tokens to:
Governance only. The only use of holding WLFI is governance, not any investment. As a token holder, you will only have the right to propose and vote on proposals that will help shape the future of the World Liberty Financial protocol, including decisions about marketing plans, future features, etc.
No Economic Rights. Tokens do not confer any rights, express or implied, other than the right to use the tokens as a means of participating in the governance of the WLF Protocol through the WLF Governance Platform. WLF tokens do not represent or confer any ownership rights or shares, shares or security or equivalent rights, or any right to obtain any distributions, revenue sharing, additional tokens, intellectual property rights or any other form of participation in or related to the WLF Protocol and/or the Company and its corporate affiliates.
Non-transferable. All WLFI are non-transferable and locked in a wallet or smart contract indefinitely. Users should treat the purchase of WLFI tokens as other non-refundable purchases of goods and services and accept the risk. If in the future it is desired to unlock the transferability of WLFI through the protocol governance process, such unlocking will only be permitted if it is determined that it does not violate applicable law, which must be more than 12 months after the completion of the token sale. WLFI holders should assume that the tokens are non-transferable indefinitely. As a result of the non-transferability of the tokens, the World Liberty Financial protocol has not taken any actions and does not plan to create a secondary market for the tokens.
World Liberty Financial also strictly distinguishes between the WLFI token, the WLF governance platform, and the WLF protocol. The WLFI token does not provide any economic or other rights related to the WLF protocol or otherwise. Therefore, there is no right to receive any fees generated by the WLF protocol or earned by the company.
World Liberty Financial specifically states that WLFI tokens are not intended to be digital currencies, securities, derivatives, transferable crypto assets, or any other type of financial instrument. Tokens cannot be transferred or sold in exchange for money or other assets (including crypto assets), nor can they be used to purchase goods or services from any party.
Conclusion
All signs indicate that World Liberty Financial is a DeFi product OEMed by the Trump family.
The real trading team behind World Liberty Financial also had a "black" history, and the WLFI tokens were completely locked, with no secondary market and no liquidity, which caused the public sale of WLFI tokens to progress slowly, with only $10 million sold. It is far from matching Trump's momentum.
But this does not negate the possibility of World Liberty Financial's future success. After all, the US election will be held in three weeks, and Trump is likely to return to the White House.
Based on Trumpâs attitude towards encryption, his interests in the WLF, and his appeal to Americans and people around the world, the worldâs crypto population is likely to jump to the 1 billion level in the next four years from the current level.
With this huge traffic and Trump's endorsement, OEM may also be successful, just as Trump sold the naming rights to other OEM products.
