Just one day after surviving a second assassination attempt, Donald Trump today launched his long-rumored crypto project, World Liberty Financial. Though much about the project remains unclear, the team behind World Liberty Financial unveiled previously unconfirmed details during a live interview with Rug Radio, Decrypt’s sister company.
The project will offer borrowing and lending services for cryptocurrencies on the Ethereum blockchain network, not unlike the vast array of existing applications in DeFi—a catch-all term that describes cryptocurrency products that provide financial services without the need for intermediaries such as banks.
Trump’s crypto project promises to be more “user friendly” and accessible than existing, highly technical alternatives, and will be underpinned by a non-transferable (meaning, not tradable) World Liberty Financial (WLFI) governance token.
The World Liberty Financial crypto team, helmed by operations lead Zak Folkman and data and strategy head Chase Herro, today released new details regarding the WLFI token distribution plan, and made clear that the token’s sale will be regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“There have been no pre-sales and no VC, early buy-ins," Folkman said during today's interview. "It is just like any other DeFi project you can expect to see that's launching now with incredibly fair token distribution," he said.
The majority of the token’s supply—62.66%—will be distributed in a forthcoming token sale, with a portion of net proceeds from that sale going to the project’s multi-signature wallet treasury reserve, according to an excerpt of World Liberty’s white paper reviewed by Decrypt. A remainder of net proceeds from the sale will be paid to the project’s founders, team, and service providers.
Approximately 17.33% of WLFI’s supply will be earmarked for incentivizing the expansion of participation in the governance of World Liberty, along with other community growth initiatives, according to the excerpt of the white paper.
The remaining 20% of the token supply will go to the project’s team, advisors, and future hires, with undisclosed portions of WLFI earmarked for the WLF Foundation, affiliates of the Trump Organization, and the Witkoff Group, which is run by longtime Trump ally and friend Steve Witkoff—a participant in World Liberty.
CoinDesk previously reported that World Liberty insiders would receive 70% of WLFI’s token supply—a move that would have run counter to industry norms.
A source familiar with the matter described previous reports about World Liberty Financial as “inaccurate” but would not elaborate. Decrypt viewed excerpts of what is presumably an updated draft of the white paper that contains language similar to that in previous reports, but with substantially different token allocations.
The team behind the project also revealed Monday that the sale of WLFI will be regulated by the SEC, addressing at least one element of the questions surrounding Trump’s choice to launch a DeFi project during a period of profound regulatory uncertainty for the novel sector.
All purchasers of WLFI will be screened using the same “know your customer” (KYC) standards relied upon by American crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken. While an excerpt of World Liberty’s white paper reviewed by Decrypt emphasized that WLFI tokens are not intended to be deemed securities, the tokens will be offered via Rule 506(c) of the SEC’s Regulation D— meaning they will be sold as unregistered securities under an SEC exemption that allows for such products to be offered in the United States to accredited investors.
The SEC defines accredited investors as financially sophisticated individuals who have either earned $200,000 in one of the last two years, earned $300,000 collectively with their spouse or spousal equivalent in the last two years, have a net worth of $1 million or more with or without a spouse, or are a broker or financial professional.
A source familiar with the matter, however, said the finer details of the project are still subject to change.
Edited by Guillermo Jimenez and Andrew Hayward
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