On September 1, the news of the official launch of the World Liberty Financial (WLFI) token once again drew the attention of the entire crypto market to the Trump family. In just half a year, this project, originally thought to be just an "Aave fork," has evolved from a marginal attempt into a core piece of the Trump family's crypto strategy.
The dramatic nature of the story lies in its background. Just a year ago, the market's impression of Trump's involvement in crypto was still at the joking level of "Trump Coin." However, when Trump returned to the White House, his family did not stick to speculative NFTs or meme coins but instead chose stablecoins, lending, and sovereign debt-like assets as part of the financial infrastructure. As a result, WLFI's positioning has shifted from a single lending protocol to a "DeFi super app" attempting to integrate stablecoins, treasury assets, and trading and payments.
This transformation is not just about the launch of a protocol but is a landmark event of the fusion of politics and capital. Trump's son personally went to Hong Kong to attend a conference, becoming a star on the Asian Web3 stage; the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund used the WLFI stablecoin USD1 to complete a $2 billion investment in Binance; figures like Justin Sun, DWF Labs, Ryan Fang, and other crypto OGs all showed their support. The close connection between political resources and crypto resources has enabled WLFI's influence to far exceed that of an ordinary DeFi project.
Why should we pay attention to WLFI? Because it reveals a new proposition: when the U.S. president's family gets involved, will stablecoins be redefined? When capital, policy, and narrative are intertwined, will the order of the crypto industry be rewritten?
Recently, BlockBeats and "Web3 101" jointly produced a new episode of a podcast, in which the host Liu Feng and dForce founder Mindao delve into the more complex context behind WLFI's rise, its real-world logic, narrative techniques, and potential risks. The following viewpoints are all derived from the podcast content summary (Listen to the podcast: "E60 | Talking About Trump and WLFI Again: Is the President's Inner Circle Picking the Fruits of the DeFi Revolution?").
The Trump family's foray into the crypto world was not a spur-of-the-moment decision but rather followed a clear strategic logic. As early as October 2024, before Trump was re-elected as president, World Liberty Financial (WLFI) had already been publicly announced. At that time, the market excitement was not particularly high, and the ICO took some time to sell out, but the project's positioning was already beginning to emerge: the Trump family almost entirely listed all its members as "co-founders," demonstrating their high degree of attachment and ambition for the project.
From an overall layout perspective, WLFI continues the Trump family's "consistent approach" in the crypto world—almost every major track must have a foot in the door: from the initial Trump Meme coin, to DeFi protocols, to stablecoins, Bitcoin mining, and even the Treasury Reserve company, essentially covering the panorama of the crypto world. WLFI is the project that best embodies its ambition, starting from a simple fork of Aave, gradually upgrading to a "full matrix" DeFi Super App, with ambitions far beyond the initial imagination.
Today, it is not only preparing to launch a stablecoin but is also linked to the DAT treasury model, becoming the most practical flagship product in the family's crypto layout. As for token distribution, there is currently no disclosure of how much the family specifically holds, but it is widely believed in the industry that WLFI is similar to Trump Coin—except for the portion held by investors and ICO public offering, the majority of the shares are still firmly in the hands of the Trump family. In other words, although some co-founders and external investors are involved, the real control remains concentrated in the hands of the Trump family and their closest allies.
Although President Trump himself is listed as a "Co-Founder" of World Liberty Financial (WLFI), he is not directly involved in the project's day-to-day operations. From the information disclosed by the team, the core lineup is jointly led by the Trump family and the Witkoff family with over forty years of New York real estate background, along with a few close allies like Dolomite and some old friends who have been involved in the crypto industry. In other words, the skeleton of this project is not a temporary makeshift, but is built on deep family relationships and long-term business ties.
As the team gradually expands, WLFI's circle of friends has quickly extended to the native powers of the crypto world, especially the Chinese community. Ankr founder Ryan Fang, Paxos co-founder Rich Teo, and Scroll founder Sandy Peng all stood on the camp's side early on. There were even rumors that the project initially planned to launch on the Layer2 chain Scroll developed by a Chinese team, but subsequently faded from people's view. More well-known are Justin Sun and the controversial market maker DWF Labs, whose relationship with WLFI is equally close. DWF not only received token investments from the project but also first listed WLFI's stablecoin USD1 on their platform Falcon Finance.
At a higher level of resource mobilization, WLFI further collaborated with the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund MGX. In March 2025, this fund invested $20 billion in Binance, with the settlement of this fund being carried out through the Trump family's stablecoin, USD1. This operation caused USD1's market value to skyrocket from $100 million to $20 billion in a very short period of time, with over 90% of the reserves directly custodied in a Binance account. Subsequently, Binance extensively provided use cases for USD1 on the BNB Chain, ranging from meme coin liquidity adjustments to initial offering services. Exchanges like Huobi (HTX) quickly followed suit and listed USD1. Falcon Finance even integrated it into its collateral system, allowing users to directly use USD1 for lending.
The impact of this approach was immediate. Leveraging the political and commercial influence of the Trump family, along with the resource tilt from Binance, DWF, Justin Sun, and other crypto OGs, USD1 quickly established a circulating network across the entire crypto market in a matter of months. Whether it was top-tier exchanges or second- and third-tier platforms, all rapidly integrated this emerging stablecoin. It can be said that through this "family endorsement + global resource integration" model, WLFI transformed the originally complex and arduous stablecoin promotion into a "fast lane" driven by collaborative efforts of resource players. This is also one of the key reasons why WLFI was able to quickly gain popularity.
Over the past six months, World Liberty Financial (WLFI) has presented a report card that has amazed the entire DeFi industry. For most DeFi products, gaining user adoption and forming effective ecosystem support often require lengthy accumulation: not only do exchanges need to be willing to support, but other protocols also need to be willing to integrate. Especially for stablecoins, which face a "hard battle track," opening up the field is almost a prolonged battle. However, WLFI comprehensively expanded its market in just half a year, which is rare in the fiercely competitive crypto world.
So, what exactly is WLFI? What is its product logic and development path? If we start from the beginning, WLFI was initially just a simple fork of Aave. Aave is one of the most classic lending protocols in the crypto world, allowing users to collateralize assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum to borrow stablecoins. WLFI's starting point was almost a replica of Aave's model, positioning itself as a standard DeFi lending project. But as the project progressed, it gradually expanded into a more ambitious direction, especially in stablecoin issuance. WLFI's stablecoin USD1, to some extent, aims to compete with mainstream stablecoins like USDT and USDC, becoming a key strategic pivot.
At the same time, WLFI has also ventured into the traditional financial markets, establishing a publicly traded coin stock company Alt5 Sigma Corporation and planning to use the WLFI token as a reserve asset, following a path similar to the "MicroStrategy-style flywheel." The team even announced plans to enter the realm of crypto payments, almost incorporating all possible hot trends into their blueprint. It can be said that WLFI has evolved from a simple lending protocol to a state of "issuing tokens while constantly updating the whitepaper." With each version update, its vision has become increasingly grandiose, moving towards a "fully integrated DeFi Super App": with a stablecoin in place, WLFI can expand into interest-bearing products, treasury products, lending, arbitrage, and possibly even extend into trading, derivatives, and other areas, building a "super app" that covers all tracks of DeFi.
From an industry synergy perspective, other businesses of the Trump family are also interacting with WLFI. For example, Trump's multi-billion-dollar market cap media tech company, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp (DJT), has also started exploring the integration of crypto payments. In the future, the family's coin stock company is likely to integrate with WLFI's stablecoin and lending products, forming a closed loop between the family business and DeFi protocols. This "industrial chain complementarity" not only provides WLFI with practical use cases but also strengthens its financial ecosystem ambitions.
In its external narrative, the WLFI team has consistently emphasized that their mission is to "Bank the Unbanked" — enabling those who cannot access the traditional financial system to obtain financial services through DeFi and Web3. This slogan is not new and has been a common refrain in the crypto industry. However, upon closer inspection of WLFI's actual progress, one will find that its execution process is much more complex than just a slogan.
Initially, WLFI was merely a replica of a lending protocol, but quickly ventured into the stablecoin arena. Its USD1 stablecoin adopted a centralized issuance model similar to USDT and USDC: users hand over dollars to the team, and the team mints an equivalent amount of USD1 on-chain. This model is not novel, but with strong resources and capital integration capabilities, the USD1 scale surged from $100 million to $2 billion in just a few days, reshaping the market's perception of "speed."
However, if you were to visit WLFI's official website today, you would find that most products are still in the "Coming Soon" state: whether it's lending or an exchange, everything is still in the "coming soon" phase. In other words, WLFI's product matrix has mostly yet to materialize. But in the meantime, its influence and narrative have already permeated the entire industry: stablecoins have been launched, tokens have completed multiple rounds of sales, bringing significant revenue to the project, and it debuted on a tier-one global exchange on September 1.
This is the real portrait of WLFI – a DeFi project with a grand story and vision, but a product still in the brewing stage. Its model is more like "promise the pie first, then build hype," then quickly cash in the pie for real impact with the help of political resources and capital alliances. Although its specific applications are still limited at the moment, it has become a hot topic in the market with a sudden surge to USD1 and the backing of family resources. In other words, WLFI may still be in the "city-building blueprint stage," but the shadow of this city is already striking enough.
Many people think that the Trump family's involvement in DeFi is just a speculative move to follow a trend. However, looking at the development path of World Liberty Financial (WLFI), this assumption is not entirely accurate. Trump has indeed dabbled in NFTs and meme coins in the past, which are more like short-term operations chasing market sentiment; whereas WLFI's positioning is quite different. It is the most strategic part of the family in the crypto landscape, not only in scale but also carrying a sense of reality and long-term consideration.
The reason can be traced back to the deep pain of being "debanked." After Trump's first term, the family saw their hundreds of bank accounts in the United States closed overnight, and their real estate companies lost basic banking services from traditional financial giants like JP Morgan and Bank of America. Trump's son recalled this scene with anger in his eyes in an interview. Whether out of political retaliation or regulatory reasons, this "DeBank" event made the Trump family feel firsthand that the traditional financial system was not reliable for them. If Trump steps down in 2028 and the Democrats return to power, a similar blockade is highly likely to occur again. In such a scenario, traditional industries such as real estate and media would have almost no defense, but if the family's core assets have already shifted to the crypto world, the situation would be completely different. Therefore, the business they are engaged in now and the past experience of deep-seated pain are directly related. From the perspective of the Trump family, building WLFI is a very logical decision.
The history of cryptocurrency's growth itself is a history of "anti-traditional bankization." From China to the United States, from regulatory crackdowns to policy blockades, Crypto has risen through expulsion and resistance, ultimately giving birth to today's $4 trillion market and a complete DeFi infrastructure. The Trump family is well aware of this and has begun shifting their business focus to the crypto track. This is not only a defensive choice but also an offensive layout: pushing legislation during their tenure to embed crypto finance into the U.S. legal system, ensuring that even in case of a regime change, the family's crypto empire will receive institutional protection.
From this perspective, WLFI is not a speculative bubble, but a "both realistic and strategic" decision. It not only allows the family's wealth system to detach from reliance on banks but also leaves behind a firewall for future uncertainties. More importantly, compared to simply investing in existing protocols like Aave, WLFI is a true entrepreneurial endeavor. The project's value lies not only in the token itself but also in business operations such as stablecoins, lending, derivatives, etc., intertwining Trump's political influence with global crypto resources, with a much higher ceiling than a simple investment.
Truly understanding the Trump family's considerations reveals that World Liberty Financial (WLFI) is not a mere crypto speculation but a grand strategic maneuver. At present, leveraging Trump's influence as the U.S. president, they have transformed this political and social capital into a new resource monetization method. The term "monetization" here is in quotes because the family may not necessarily agree with this characterization, but to the outside world, it is indeed a path to leveraging influence to capitalize on it.
The brilliance of this path is that it not only brings attention to the family but also attracts the most powerful players in the crypto world to stand in support. Leveraging the aura during the presidential term, they first accumulate influence in the crypto realm, and then through the characteristics of blockchain that resist censorship and government intervention, build a firewall for future business interests. Thus, even after Trump leaves office, the family can still maintain a sustainable moat.
Moreover, the Trump family cleverly places their influence in the global market for digestion. Real estate and media businesses rely heavily on localization and the banking system, while Crypto's nature is decentralized and globalized, allowing influence to be most effectively capitalized on a global scale. For example, three to four out of ten attendees at Trump's private dinner are of Chinese descent, and WLFI's supporters are also heavily concentrated in the Asian market—especially offshore exchanges in the Greater China region. Cryptocurrency brings a globalizing touch far more efficient than traditional real estate projects.
Behind this, Chinese OG figures like Binance CZ and Justin Sun play key roles. Today, the primary use cases for WLFI's stablecoin USD1 first land on Binance and Huobi (HDX). Staking protocols on the BNB chain like ListaDAO, the Plume Network actively laying out RWA in Hong Kong, and projects like StakeStone are closely linked to Binance; heavyweight players with Chinese backgrounds such as Falcon Finance, invested by DWF Labs, Ankr founder Ryan Fang, Paxos founder Rich Teo, among others, are deeply involved in WLFI's project. In other words, WLFI's global influence is accelerating through the network of the Asian crypto community.
What's even more interesting is that last week the CFTC revealed the resurgence of non-U.S. exchanges into the U.S. market. These giant offshore exchanges, such as Binance or OKX, may leverage this regulatory window to re-enter the U.S. market. Whether it's Binance or OKX, if they can establish a closer relationship with the Trump family through this channel, not only will they benefit from easier legislation and market access, but they may also gain a competitive advantage in the U.S. market.
Therefore, WLFI is not just a tool for the Trump family's "influence monetization" but also a strategic pawn in their global ally network construction. It serves not only their current political capital but also reserves a safe space for their post-term business landscape.
Why would so many crypto OGs support World Liberty Financial (WLFI)? Some clues can be gathered from rumors in the industry. For example, CZ—some speculate that his support for Trump is partly driven by the hope of a potential "pardon" in the future. Similarly, Sun Yuchen was asked a similar question in an interview: Is this support some form of "political cash"? Whether true or not, for top-tier offshore exchanges, this is indeed a worthwhile trade-off—exchanging capital investment for political resources often yields greater returns than mere commercial investment.
On the other hand, Trump himself, like Musk, possesses an incredibly strong attention gravity field, almost like a "traffic black hole." Whether it's a coin he endorses, an NFT, or various public statements, they all instantly draw worldwide attention. For exchanges, supporting such a project carries little risk: after all, with the Trump family background, one hardly needs to worry about a project rug pull or being exploited. Taking USD1 stablecoin as an example, the deal tied to Middle Eastern capital is a smart business move for Binance. Since the major investor is funding the project, the choice of stablecoin doesn't really matter. Moreover, using a stablecoin associated with the Trump family not only incurs no additional costs but also garners favor from the Trump camp.
A more practical consideration is the potential of the U.S. market. In the next three years, the likelihood of giant exchanges like Binance or OKX returning to the U.S. market far exceeds their return to China. Getting closer to the Trump family implies that they may receive more regulatory and legislative convenience in the U.S. market. While Coinbase is more cautious, they also promptly expressed support when Trump Coin was launched. Every exchange will weigh the pros and cons of supporting the Trump family. But whether from a political or economic standpoint, it's quite a profitable business.
Regarding Binance accepting nearly $2 billion USD1 stablecoin, a common question is: Is this a good deal? At first glance, Binance gave up a significant amount of potential revenue. Because if this funding were deposited as USD or USDC, the interest income alone could be as high as $80-100 million per year; and USDC also provides subsidies to distribution partners. However, accepting the newly minted USD1 means that these revenues are forfeited. However, Binance may receive more benefits:
Firstly, this is a compliantly issued stablecoin, fully compliant with the stablecoin framework under U.S. regulation, with the possibility of being mainstream like USDC and USDT. Speculations suggest that there may be a "back-to-back" agreement between Binance and the Trump family or a Middle Eastern fund, such as interest income sharing or liquidity support subsidies, which means that Binance did not actually lose that much revenue. Secondly, the money itself is led by a Middle Eastern fund and may not be solely at Binance's discretion. Steven Witkoff, as the Middle East's ambassador, along with a co-founder of WLFI, could easily have designated USD1 as an investment tool, so Binance naturally accepted it. The logic here is clear: this is the result of the intertwining of politics and capital, rather than a purely commercial choice. Thirdly, for Binance, USD1 itself is a strategic option. Ever since BUSD was "strangled" by regulation, Binance has always lacked a stablecoin closely related to itself and capable of landing on a compliance level. Although FDUSD exists, its future is uncertain. In contrast, USD1 has the endorsement of the Trump family and U.S. regulatory status, and may even become Binance's "default stablecoin" in the future. Once successful, a closer strategic alliance will be formed between the two parties.
In other words, by investing in Binance through a Middle Eastern consortium, supporting WLFI and USD1, gaining more support from Asian exchanges, WLFI made a very correct decision. It allows OGs to stand on the side of potential power and also lays the groundwork for a possible return to the U.S. market in the future. At this point, WLFI seems more like a bilateral choice between the Trump family and crypto OGs: Trump exchanges influence for capital and support, while exchanges bet on future political protection and market opportunities with capital.
WLFI is the governance token of the World Liberty Financial protocol, but its design differs from a typical governance token. Firstly, this token has no dividend function and cannot represent equity in the entity behind the project, so the substantial decision-making power is not in the hands of token holders. In other words, WLFI is more like a "pure governance token," but whether it truly plays a governance role remains questionable, as key protocol decisions are still made by the company itself rather than being driven by on-chain governance processes.
In terms of token distribution, WLFI appears to be very centralized. Trump himself is reportedly holding over 15% of the tokens, while Justin Sun holds about 3% of the circulating supply due to a large purchase he made earlier. Additionally, a group of whales has acquired a large amount of chips through on-chain and off-chain transactions. Overall, during the ICO period, WLFI sold approximately 30% of the tokens, with the remaining 70% held by the project team. As for how these internal shares are allocated, the unlock schedule, and whether they can be sold in the future, there is currently no public information available in the market, which also brings a lot of uncertainty to the selling pressure outlook for WLFI.
In terms of the issuance design, WLFI has also followed many DeFi projects' "typical operations." For example, when the whitepaper was released in October 2024 and the project was still in the presale stage, the tokens were set to be non-transferable, which is actually a common regulatory avoidance practice in the US market. A similar approach has also appeared in projects like EigenLayer, with the lock-up period typically lasting up to a year. Today, WLFI is gradually becoming transferable and meeting listing conditions, partly because the legislative environment in the US is clearer; on the other hand, with the change in SEC leadership and a shift in regulatory attitude towards friendliness, obstacles to the token's circulation and listing have also been removed.
From a tokenomic perspective, WLFI is similar to many DeFi projects, with governance functionality supporting on-chain voting and distribution mechanisms. Even during the non-transferable period, holders can participate in governance voting. This arrangement is common in US-based projects and is seen as a protective design to alleviate regulatory pressure. However, whether WLFI can truly leverage governance value or is more of a "chip with a political aura" is still a focus of external attention.
In October last year, WLFI once narrated as "building a lending protocol based on Aave v3." At the WLFI-Aave governance forum, a complementary proposal was put forward: firstly, 20% of the future fee income generated by the WLFI protocol is planned to be allocated to the Aave DAO treasury; secondly, 7% of the WLFI token's total supply (based on a billion token count at the time) would be donated to Aave for governance, liquidity incentives, or to drive decentralization processes.
On August 23 this year, the Aave founder confirmed externally that "the proposal is valid." However, WLFI team members subsequently publicly denied the authenticity of the "7% quota," and domestic media further received a reply of "fake news" when they sought confirmation from the WLFI team. The Aave founder was very angry about this, and community sentiment quickly turned negative. Roughly estimated based on the pre-market valuation at the time, the value corresponding to 7% had reached the "tens of billions of dollars" level, which was also one of the direct triggers for the community's strong emotions.
In fact, at that time, the proposal had only reached a "temperature check," and there was a fundamental difference between that and "binding" governance. The former is mostly a textual expression of intent, where a vote of "for" does not necessarily imply the binding effect of "executable code." If there is a lack of contract logic tied to the proposal, the governance result could be overturned by a subsequent proposal at any time.
In other words, without on-chain executable terms, the so-called "approval" is more akin to a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which is difficult to establish both legally and at the protocol implementation level. Typically, projects at the technology platform level (such as Spark and Aave) do not distribute such a large proportion of tokens, so the initial proposal's "generosity" deviated from industry norms. There were some "ambiguous" criteria in place, and the commitment to a "fixed ratio" of the total token allocation and long-term revenue share was unusual without first verifying Aave's substantial contribution to WLFI.
Returning to the point in time, in the fourth quarter of 2024, WLFI was still facing skepticism about its "lack of credibility and overvaluation." Additionally, the founding team had a "criminal record" of being hacked in previous projects, so the token sale was not ideal. In this scenario, leveraging Aave's brand and security reputation to "dignify" itself was a comprehensible public relations and market strategy through a combination of "Fork + revenue sharing/token transfer." This approach not only alleviated the moral questioning of "copying" but also hedged against security concerns.
However, in the following months, WLFI quickly gained momentum and shifted its strategic focus to a DeFi hub centered around the USD1 stablecoin, with its original positioning as a "lending protocol core" becoming secondary. After the narrative shift, the early "fixed ratio" static commitment naturally faced renegotiation. It was more likely to evolve into dynamic incentives linked to actual usage and contribution or to earmark some tokens for specific liquidity drainage in Aave-related markets.
At this point, Liu Feng referenced content from an interview with Laura Shin and Kyle Samani, the founder of Multicoin, in 2018. At that time, Kyle put forward a viewpoint that "in the Crypto world, technology is not important; how to go to market and operate is the most important." This viewpoint was questioned by many at that time, but looking at it now, such occurrences are becoming more and more frequent.
First, the current landscape of stablecoins is not optimistic. From a crypto-native perspective, apart from a few leaders (such as USDC and USDT), there is little daily use beyond yield stacking. Even with a capital injection of around $2 billion, USDE struggles to see natural retention, and FDUSD is mostly used for strategic scenarios like exchange initial listings, with almost no normal usage, indicating that "scaling up" does not necessarily equate to "being needed by users."
In this reference frame, USD1 faces three key challenges: firstly, the dual-edge effect of politics and banking channels. A political halo may facilitate rapid liquidity organization on offshore exchanges but could create resistance within the domestic financial system. The willingness of large U.S. banks to provide friendly settlement and custody remains uncertain, as some jurisdictions and institutions may even avoid being on the same stage due to political sensitivity (such as the example of Hong Kong-related individuals choosing to avoid Eric Trump's visit to Hong Kong).
Secondly, there is a bottleneck in channels and distribution reality. Currently, USD1 is predominantly leveraged by offshore exchange resources, and transitioning to "real user adoption" requires integrating embedded scenarios on the banking side, payment side, e-commerce, and social/super App. These are slow variables that are heavy on qualifications, risk control, and business negotiations. Without these integrations, stablecoins easily become "settlement chips between entities."
Thirdly, there is a self-consistent requirement for product and incentives. Cryptonatives generally detest a "scheme narrative" and prioritize verifiable reliability and clear use cases. For USD1 to break the strong inertia of USDT/USDC, it needs to establish stable expectations in terms of reserve transparency/audit disclosure rhythm, multi-chain usability and bridging experience, wallet/custody native integration, merchant fees and rebate structures, convenient redemption in compliant regions, among other aspects, and transform early resource advantages into long-term incentives tied to "actual usage," rather than one-time liquidity subsidies.
However, WLFI's "resource disk" does indeed have unique spillover value: by creating a tangible interest and policy-driven force for the Trump family, it is expected to pave the way for broader on-chain innovation. The initial step of "on-chain liquidity stacking" for USD1 has already emerged, but the key to transitioning from "passive liquidity" to "active usage" lies in whether it can leverage its existing ecosystem whitelist and appeal, continuously onboard high-quality applications, and achieve cross-border distribution.
In the short term, it is difficult to shake USDT/USDC's position, and the more realistic USD1 currently serves as a universal settlement stablecoin among multiple entities. However, USD1 is relatively weak in terms of resources for bank entry and exit, pilot progress in payments/e-commerce/payrolls, mainstream wallet and custody default support channels. Coupled with the marginal changes in the U.S. domestic political environment, this is a double-edged sword that may not necessarily be a bonus point.
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