World Liberty Financial

World Liberty Financial was established in September 2024. On September 16 of that year, Donald Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, formally launched the family cryptocurrency venture in an interview on the social media platform X, but did not discuss the specifics of the venture or how it would work; in the same interview he gave his first public comments on the apparent assassination attempt against him a day earlier. His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and others subsequently described cryptocurrency as an alternative to what they allege is a banking system tilted against conservatives. The venture was then expected to offer cryptocurrency borrowing and lending services.⁠[1][2][2][2][2][2]

Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the government ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), said at the time that a candidate launching a business venture he could profit from in the midst of a campaign could create ethical conflicts; American University law professor Hilary Allen said Trump’s reversal on cryptocurrency had been motivated in part by financial interests.⁠[2][2][2]

The project’s white paper lists Donald Trump and his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric TrumpEric TrumpEric Trump is an American businessman and the second son of US President Donald Trump; he has long served as an executive at the family business, the Trump Organization, and ran it with his older brother while his father was president. Since 2024 he has been one of the main public faces of the Trump family’s crypto businesses, co-founding World Liberty Financial and the Bitcoin mining company American Bitcoin.Open the full entry as co-founders of the platform; other co-founders include Zach Witkoff, son of Steve Witkoff (chief executive officer as of August 2025), and Zachary Folkman.⁠[3][4][1][1]

The governance token WLFI launched with an initial supply of 100 billion tokens. Between approximately October 14, 2024 and March 14, 2025, the project sold a total of 25 billion tokens publicly to eligible participants at two prices, $0.015 and $0.05 per token, raising $550 million; another approximately 8.893 billion tokens were sold to strategic investors and institutions. Of all tokens, 33.893% were allocated to the token sale, 32.6% to community growth and incentives, 30% to the co-founding parties DT Marks, AMG, and WC Digital Fi, LLC, and 3.507% to the team and advisors, with the last two allocations locked at launch.⁠[5][5][5][5][5][5][5][5][5]

Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun put at least $75 million into the project, making him its biggest known investor, and serves as an advisor to the venture; at the time of his first investment he was fighting a US Securities and Exchange Commission securities fraud lawsuit, which was paused in February 2025.⁠[4][4]

On February 1, 2026, The Wall Street Journal reported that Aryam Investment 1, an Abu Dhabi investment entity backed by UAE national security adviser Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, had signed a deal with the company in January 2025, four days before Trump’s second inauguration, to purchase a 49% stake for $500 million, and that the agreement was signed by Eric Trump. Half of the amount was paid upfront, sending $187 million to Trump family-controlled entities, with tens of millions more flowing to entities tied to co-founders including relatives of Steve Witkoff; Aryam has no rights to the WLFI token. The deal had not previously been made public, and the Trump family had originally held a 75% interest in the company.⁠[6][6][7][6][6][7][6][7]

Executives of the artificial intelligence company G42 helped manage Aryam Investment 1 and took board seats at World Liberty Financial as part of the deal, making Aryam the largest outside shareholder. World Liberty Financial and White House spokespeople both denied any wrongdoing, saying President Trump was not involved in the deal and that it would not influence US policy.⁠[6][6]

In March 2025, World Liberty Financial launched USD1, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar and redeemable 1:1 for dollars, backed by cash, US government money market funds, and other cash equivalents. USD1 is issued, minted, custodied, and redeemed by BitGo, a regulated digital asset custodian, which also holds the reserve assets; World Liberty Financial and its affiliated entities own the USD1 brand and provide certain services, but do not issue or custody the stablecoin directly.⁠[8][9][9][9][9][10][10][9]

On May 1, 2025, at the TOKEN2049TOKEN2049TOKEN2049 is a global series of cryptocurrency and Web3 industry conferences that originated in Hong Kong; as of October 2026 it centers on its Singapore and Dubai editions and has announced a New York edition to be added in June 2027. The Singapore edition is held at Marina Bay Sands, coinciding with the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix.Open the full entry conference in Dubai, Zach Witkoff announced that USD1 had been selected as the stablecoin to close Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX’s $2 billion investment in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance; Eric Trump was also on stage in the same panel discussion, which Justin Sun moderated. MGX had announced the investment on March 12 of that year. Witkoff also announced that USD1 would be integrated into Justin Sun’s Tron blockchain. At the time, about $2.1 billion of USD1 was in circulation, and an anonymous wallet had received about $2 billion worth of USD1 between April 16 and 29.⁠[4][8][4][8][4][4][4]

That year, government ethics experts and political opponents criticized Trump’s crypto businesses over potential conflicts of interest; Trump’s company said Trump had handed over management of his assets to his children before returning to the White House and had no role in day-to-day decision-making.⁠[4][4]

On August 11, 2025, Nasdaq-listed ALT5 Sigma announced that it would issue 100 million shares at $7.50 per share, raising about $750 million; apart from up to $10 million used to settle litigation, pay debt, and fund existing operations, the remaining net proceeds would be used to purchase WLFI tokens from World Liberty Financial and establish a crypto treasury. At the same time, World Liberty Financial, as lead investor, subscribed with $750 million of WLFI tokens for 1 million shares of ALT5 common stock and pre-funded warrants for 99 million shares. ALT5 had announced that Zach Witkoff would become chairman and Eric Trump a director; on the 29th of that month, ALT5 disclosed that, after discussion with Nasdaq and in order to comply with its listing rules, Eric Trump and Zachary Folkman had instead been designated board observers.⁠[11][11][1][1][1][1][1][1][1][1]

On September 1, 2025, WLFI tokens began trading; after rising to $0.32, the price fell below $0.18, and the project then burned 47 million tokens and proposed a buyback program using protocol fees. On September 4, Justin Sun’s address was blacklisted by the project after he transferred 50 million WLFI (about $9 million) to the HTX exchange; Sun said these were merely small deposit tests that did not involve buying or selling. The project said the accounts blacklisted in bulk by its designated wallet were ones compromised through leaked private keys.⁠[12][12][12][12][12][12]

In November 2025, Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Jack Reed wrote to the US Department of Justice and the Treasury Department calling for an investigation, citing claims that WLFI governance tokens had been bought by blockchain addresses tied to North Korea’s Lazarus Group as well as Russian- and Iranian-linked entities. The lawmakers argued that the project’s ownership structure sent most token-sale proceeds to the president’s family, creating a direct conflict of interest.⁠[6][6]

On December 25, 2025, World Liberty Financial announced that USD1’s market capitalization had surpassed $3 billion. On January 7, 2026, its subsidiary applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish World Liberty Trust Company, National Association, a national trust bank dedicated to stablecoin operations, to issue and custody USD1 and to provide digital asset custody and stablecoin conversion services to exchanges, market makers, and investment firms; Zach Witkoff was the proposed president and chairman.⁠[13][13][13][13][13][13]

Also in January 2026, Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance signed a memorandum of understanding with SC Financial Technologies, an affiliate of World Liberty Financial, to explore using USD1 for cross-border payments, signed by Zach Witkoff and Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb. About six months later, Pakistani officials confirmed there had been no pilot project, no licenses issued, and no known USD1 transactions.⁠[14][14][14]

In April 2026, the project team borrowed $40 million in stablecoins against WLFI holdings as collateral, drawing discontent. On April 15, World Liberty Financial proposed a new unlock plan: locked tokens held by insiders and early supporters would first be subject to a two-year cliff, after which early supporters’ tokens would unlock linearly over two years and insiders’ over three years, and 10% of insiders’ locked tokens (about 4.5 billion) would be burned; holders who did not accept the new plan would remain locked indefinitely. Because insiders held about 45 billion locked tokens and early supporters about 17 billion, the team would retain a governance majority.⁠[15][15][15][15][15][15]

On April 22, Justin Sun sued World Liberty Financial in California federal court, alleging that it had frozen all of his tokens without proper justification, stripped him of his governance voting rights, and threatened to burn his tokens; he had previously criticized WLFI’s “backdoor blacklisting function” and called the fact that 76% of the voting power in a March governance vote came from 10 wallets an alarming sign of concentrated influence. The project team called his claims baseless; Eric Trump responded, “The only thing more ridiculous than this lawsuit is spending $6 million on a banana duct-taped to a wall,” and said he was proud of the team. Sun said the lawsuit did not change his views on President Trump or his administration.⁠[16][16][16][3][3][17][16][17]

That month, The Wall Street Journal reported that a Timor-Leste resort project under AB, a blockchain project that had announced it would deploy USD1, had been led by two men sanctioned by the US over their alleged links to Cambodia’s Prince Group; Senator Warren used the report to criticize Trump. A lawyer for World Liberty Financial said the company had no relationship with the sanctioned individuals and that the arrangement with AB was merely a limited non-exclusive technology integration; the AB project itself has not been accused of criminality, and the two men have not been charged.⁠[18][18][18][18][18][18][18]

On May 4, 2026, World Liberty Financial sued Justin Sun in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Florida, alleging that he had made defamatory statements and violated the token-sale terms through prohibited transfers, short-selling, and straw purchases, and asking the court to order a retraction and compensation; the complaint said Sun had agreed to the project’s right to freeze tokens in the terms of sale. Sun called the lawsuit a “meritless PR stunt.” As of that day, the WLFI price was down more than 80% since launch.⁠[3][3][3][3][3][3]

As of June 2026, Trump held a 70% stake in a limited liability company that controls 38% of the World Liberty Financial holding company; a company spokesperson told NOTUS that Trump had stepped back from any operational role after taking office and that no employees held government roles.⁠[19][19]

On August 14, 2026, the OCC granted preliminary conditional approval to establish World Liberty Trust Company, National Association. The bank plans to take over USD1 issuance and reserve management from BitGo and to offer digital asset custody as a fiduciary. The approval was accompanied by passivity commitments signed by three indirect investors in the holding company, WLTC Holdings LLC, one of them signed by Eric Trump, pledging not to seek board seats or attempt to influence management decisions. The OCC said its staff had acted consistently with their statutory duties and ethical obligations; Senator Warren criticized the decision and, with nine other senators, introduced the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act.⁠[20][21][20][20][20][21][21]

In August 2026, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen estimated that WLFI investors had lost at least about $1 billion, including a paper loss of about $1.04 billion on AI Financial’s crypto treasury and at least $54 million lost by retail buyers on decentralized exchanges; Trump reported $527 million in income from WLFI token sales in 2025.⁠[22][22][22]

On October 7, 2026, Eric Trump, speaking as a co-founder of World Liberty Financial at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore, said artificial intelligence investment would be the fastest driver of digital asset growth.⁠[23]

As of September 2025, a Trump family-affiliated limited liability company controlled about 38% of World Liberty Financial’s equity and 22.5 billion WLFI tokens, and was entitled to about 75% of token sale proceeds. Financial disclosures released in July 2026 showed that Trump received more than $500 million from the project’s token sales in 2025.⁠[24][14]

WLFI is used to make proposals and vote on World Liberty Financial protocol matters: proposals are first discussed on the forum and, after screening by the company, voted on via Snapshot, usually over 7 days; a proposal passes only with a majority of votes and the participation of at least 1 billion tokens, and the company may disallow proposals that pose legal or security risks. To decentralize governance, a single holder can vote at most 5 billion WLFI (5% of total supply), and tokens held in the company’s treasury currently do not vote.⁠[10][10][10][10][10][10][10]

World Liberty Financial: Official website: https://www.worldlibertyfinancial.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[25]

X: Public account: https://x.com/WorldLibertyFi (opens in a new window)⁠[25]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/worldlibertyfi/ (opens in a new window)⁠[25]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/@worldlibertyfinancial (opens in a new window)⁠[25]