Donald Trump didn’t end up talking about World Liberty Financial — his family’s new crypto platform — during a so-called launch event on X — but the team eventually shared information about the project’s token.
Former President Trump was interviewed by crypto influencer Farokh Sarmad in a Sept. 16 X Spaces, his first public appearance since an apparent assassination attempt on Sept. 15, which he spoke about to open the livestream.
Despite Trump billing the livestream as a “State of Crypto address,” it took about 16 minutes for him to mention the word, saying: “We’re going to make our country greater than ever before, and you’re going to be happy, and you’re going to love your crypto.”
While Trump spoke for around 45 minutes, he didn’t share any information about World Liberty Financial, details of which have already been sparse.
Join me live from Mar-A-Lago at 8:00PM Eastern, tonight on X Spaces. Set a reminder and be sure to tune in! https://t.co/MXTu3hxVFP
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2024
It wasn’t until over two hours into the livestream that one of the project’s leaders, Zak Folkman, shared that “there will be a token.”
Reading from a pre-written statement, Folkman said it was planning to sell non-transferrable WLFI tokens, which “are pure governance tokens, only providing the right to make proposals and vote on matters related to the platform.”
He added that the sale of WLFI tokens to US persons would only be available to accredited investors.
“Although we don’t consider WLFI to be a security, in the light of regulatory uncertainty surrounding tokens and token sales in general in the United States, we’ve decided that it’s prudent to limit the token sales to certain persons who would be eligible to participate in transactions that are exempt from registration under the US federal securities law,” Folkman said.
“So that means that US persons may only participate in a potential token sale if they have been reasonably verified as accredited investors.”
He added a potential token sale to non-US persons would similarly be limited by “applicable restrictions.”
Folkman and fellow project leader Chase Herro, along with Eric and Donald Trump Jr., have touted how the platform would remove barriers that exist in the traditional finance system.
Folkman did not share what WLFI’s total supply would be but said it would have an “incredibly fair token distribution” with “approximately 63%” set aside for sale to the public.
He added that there had been “no pre-sales” or “early buy-ins with discounted allocation” for venture capitalists. However, 20% of the tokens were allocated to the platform’s team and advisers, with the remaining roughly 17% for user rewards.
No details were shared on the World Liberty Finance platform itself, but a reportedly leaked white paper suggests it will be a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform for borrowing and lending similar to Dough Finance, which was hacked for $1.8 million in July.
The white paper also mentions credit systems for borrowing and lending built on the popular DeFi app Aave, which World Liberty Financial said it is “working with.” It also said it wants to drive “the mass adoption of stablecoins.”
Trump — who in 2019 said that cryptocurrency’s values are “based on thin air” — has changed his tune and has sold four non-fungible token (NFT) collections, accepted crypto for his campaign contributions and cozied up to the crypto industry, promising to be a “crypto president.”
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