Donald Trump’s crypto project World Liberty Financial has confirmed plans to launch a governance token that will only be available to accredited investors.
After surviving a second assassination attempt, Former President Donald Trump made his first public appearance in an interview with crypto influencer Farokh Sarmad during a Sept. 17 X spaces where the World Liberty Financial team members unveiled the WLFI token to over 100,000 listeners.
The WLFI token will be sold under a Regulation D exemption, which lets companies raise money without registering with the SEC, as long as they stick to accredited investors or small, private sales.
Zak Folkman, one of the project’s founders, said this decision comes down to the regulatory uncertainty around token sales in the U.S., where the Securities and Exchange Commission often treats these tokens as securities.
Sales to U.S. residents will require verification as accredited investors, while non-U.S. buyers may face other restrictions, though how they can participate remains unclear.
WLFI will be a non-transferable “pure governance tokens”, offering holders the ability to make proposals and vote on matters related to the platform that promises to leave “slow and outdated banks behind.”
Around 63% of the total token supply is set aside for public sale, with 17% allocated for user rewards and 20% reserved for the team and its advisers. While Folkman did not disclose the total supply of the token, he said the distribution would be “incredibly fair,” adding that there would be no pre-sales or early buy-ins with discounted allocations for venture capitalists.
A launch date for the token launch is yet to be disclosed.
Trump silent about WLFI
Trump, who had previously teased the project on multiple occasions, refrained from directly discussing it but focused instead on broader topics related to crypto policy and the potential of digital assets within the U.S. economy.
“Crypto’s one of those things we have to do, whether we like it or not,” he said during his time as speaker, adding that the sector is “big and yet it’s a fledgling compared to what it will be.”
Other members of the Trump family participated in the discussion. Donald Trump Jr. stated that he views DeFi as a means to bring “fairness to the financial system,” aligning with what he believes “our founding fathers intended.”
Eric Trump chimed in, saying DeFi needs to be way more user-friendly, sharing his own struggles navigating decentralized platforms like Aave.
Concerns remain
As previously reported by crypto.news, there were initial concerns that 70% of all WLFI tokens would be reserved for insiders, including Trump. However, with that number now clarified at 20%, those concerns have eased somewhat, though some doubts still linger over the project’s security, specifically, the involvement of Chase Herro, one of the project’s leaders.
His last venture, Dough Financial, a lending platform similar to Aave, JustLend, and Spark, hit a peak of $3.2 million in assets before an exploit drained over $2 million. Now, Dough is nearly inactive, with just $9,747 in total value locked per Defilama.
To address security concerns, the WLFI team has enlisted top-tier security firms like PeckShield, Zokyo, and BlockSecTeam to audit and safeguard the platform. Further, the team disclosed the project’s code has been thoroughly reviewed by these experts to prevent any vulnerabilities.
