Cryptocurrency critics and advocates alike agreed on one thing this week: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency project, World Liberty Financial, launched, but it’s doing more harm than good.
“Donald Trump’s sudden enthusiasm for crypto is not only opportunistic, it’s transparent,” said Willie Nickel, a crypto-friendly North Carolina Democrat, in an emailed statement to The Block. Nickel has supported several crypto bills over the past year. “After doing absolutely nothing about crypto while in the White House, he’s now started World Liberty Financial to make money from a movement he never supported.”
In a 2+ hour live space hosted by crypto personality Farokh on social media platform X, the project’s backers said they plan to launch a non-transferable governance token called WLFI. The project has previously said it will facilitate the adoption of stablecoins and DeFi will be a part of it.
President Trump said during the meeting that cryptocurrencies “It’s big, but it’s still the beginning of what’s to come.” Later, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, wealthy real estate investors Steve and Jack Witkoff, and Dow Finance co-founders Zachary Folkman and Chase Herro all appeared to promote the venture. The project also has two Lara and Tiffany Trump’s X Account I got hacked And posted about a token that is said to be associated with World Liberty Financial.
“Everything this guy touches is a scam, and his newfound policy positions are no different,” Nickel said. “For those of us who have worked to advance cryptocurrency innovation through true bipartisan cooperation, Trump’s intervention only serves to undermine our serious efforts to build a secure and regulated future for digital assets.”
X Space was “lacking in details,” a person in the crypto industry who asked not to be named because of his ties to the Trump campaign told The Block. People in crypto and politics were either unaware of the project or didn’t know much about the people involved, they added. Republican lawmakers also didn’t have details about the Trump project, they said.
“Some people think there is an almost cult-like following in D.C. for Trump and some people on Capitol Hill,” they said. “As far as I know, I have not seen anyone advocate for, show, or promote this project.”
“There are far more downsides than upsides” to World Liberty Financial, the source said.
“There are a lot of questions about who was involved in this,” they said. “The amount of stories about people involved in this project was enough to raise alarm bells in D.C.”
There’s a lot left to be desired
Dr. Tonya Evans, a professor at Penn State Dickinson Law, saw the launch as lacking in details. Evans previously spoke at the Crypto4Harris event in August.
“The Trump family’s WLFI launch was certainly a high-profile event, but it left much to be desired in terms of transparency (a hallmark of best practice in the digital asset community) and, of course, specifics,” Evans said in an emailed statement. “While they successfully brought attention to the project and generated a circus-like curiosity, the lack of clear details about WLFI’s governance token, roadmap, and actual functionality left far more questions than answers.”
On Monday, the project’s creators said in the X space: In light of regulatory uncertainty, WLFI plans to limit participation to accredited investors. The restriction is ““This seriously undermines the narrative of financial democratization,” Evans said.
“True DeFi is about broad participation, not restricting access to the wealthiest,” Evans said. “If WLFI continues down this path, it risks being perceived as yet another example of political elites using financial instruments to benefit a privileged few, and it risks shutting out the communities that DeFi could empower.”
One of the benefits of the project, Evans said, is that it could “put DeFi in the spotlight” and bring the conversation about innovation and financial inclusion into the mainstream.
“But most proponents could increase donations to the Trump campaign and garner more support from single-issue bitcoin and cryptocurrency voters,” Evans said.
Patrick Kirby, policy adviser at the Crypto Council for Innovation, said World Liberty Financial’s launch “shows the growing influence of cryptocurrencies.”
“I think it’s important for policymakers to experiment with technology, especially decentralized exchange protocols like the ones we see here, so that they can better understand the benefits of DeFi and build that understanding through practice and experience,” Kirby told The Block.
Criticism on the hill
Rep. Sean Casten (D-Illinois), a prominent cryptocurrency critic, criticized World Liberty Financial’s distribution structure. A House Financial Services subcommittee hearing focused on digital assets was held on Wednesday.
The developers announced on Monday that they will sell 63% of WLFI tokens to the public, allocate 17% as user rewards, and 20% as team rewards.
Casten appeared to imply that the passage of the Republican-led cryptocurrency market bill, which would exempt companies with less than a 20% stake from regulation, would ultimately benefit World Liberty Financial.
Casten also criticized Trump himself.
“I can see why this would be attractive to people with fraud or money laundering concerns,” Carsten said.
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