Key Points
World Liberty Financial (CRYPTO: WLFI) , a crypto platform promoted by the Trump family, began trading on Sept. 1. It now has a market cap of close to $5 billion, down more than 20% since its debut.
The combination of big-name backers and volatility creates a tempting narrative for investors who like bold brands and exposure to risk. But this asset has a complex token structure that concentrates control, embeds unusual tokenomics, and carries an ethical overhang that will not be settled by a price chart.
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Here are three things that you need to know.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. What World Liberty Financial is and what it does
World Liberty Financial’s crypto began life as a governance token for the company with the same name. It thus confers the rights to vote on certain issues pertaining to the business.
In July, holders voted to make it transferable, and major crypto exchanges listed it in early September. That decision turned the Trump family’s political brand into a tradable crypto asset overnight. But, unlike the Official Trump meme coin, this token does actually entail something that could at least be potentially valuable: namely, voting rights.
Per Reuters, the company’s deal-making activities since its launch last year have brought in $500 million for the Trump family. Nonetheless, there isn’t actually a working business backing the governance token yet.
The only real product or service offering World Liberty Financial has at the moment is its stablecoin, USD1, that’s intended as a payment settlement rail. It’s bridgeable to a few of the leading blockchains, including Ethereum and Solana, among others. It isn’t clear at all what advantages USD1 has over other leading stablecoins, if any, but at the moment, it has a market cap of $2.6 billion (as of Sept. 5).
2. Control is highly concentrated
Investors should know that the World Liberty Financial token is mostly held by a few whales that are associated with the Trump family and their broader organization.
A Trump-linked entity received 22.5 billion tokens out of the 100 billion supply outstanding, while President Donald Trump personally reported holdings of roughly 15.7 billion at year-end 2024. When putting both together, that’s a lot of influence concentrated into one group of insiders before a single governance proposal ever hit the floor.
This introduces another issue: namely, that crypto prices are driven less by total supply and more by float, or the tokens available for public trading.
Early World Liberty Financial investors can sell only a maximum of 20% of their holdings post-vote, which keeps effective float small relative to supply outstanding, for now. When a few insiders also hold unusually large blocks, price becomes more sensitive to sentiment. And eventually, the odds are very high that insiders will opt to offload more of their tokens, potentially leading to heavy losses for everyone else who holds the asset.
Then there are the related-party economics.
Indeed, 75% of the money raised from sales associated with World Liberty Financial, after retaining certain reserves, flows to a Trump-linked entity. Whether that passes legal muster, it concentrates financial benefits, and thus valuation risk, in ways that investors need to be extremely wary of.
3. Corruption-related fallout is a serious risk to investors
World Liberty Financial sits at the intersection of private tokens and public power. The president is listed as a co-founder emeritus, and his sons are listed as co-founders.
As a result, lawmakers have flagged conflicts of interest as the token began trading, arguing that government policy and private benefit are inappropriately intertwined. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) described the Trump family’s windfall from the token’s launch as “corruption, plain and simple.” For a perception-sensitive asset with a small float, minimal revenue, and concentrated ownership, that headline risk can and will dominate near-term returns, and the longer term does not necessarily look much better.
Therefore, investors should treat World Liberty Financial almost like a meme stock whose outcomes hinge on potentially rigged governance votes, fee policies, and supply unlock schedules. It isn’t something you should be buying.
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Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.