Recently, a project called World Liberty Financial (WLFI) launched by former US President Donald Trump has emerged in the cryptocurrency market. The project only achieved 4% of its token sales target within 24 hours of launch, raising $11 million, far below its $300 million expectation. Why couldn't Trump's project benefit from the celebrity effect? Let's explore the World Liberty Financial project and the noteworthy aspects of the project.
What is WLFI? What is WLFI's vision?
WLFI (World Liberty Financial) is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform aimed at democratizing financial opportunities while strengthening the dominance of the US dollar in the global financial system. WLFI is inspired by the vision of former US President Trump, with the goal of ensuring the US dollar's position as the global reserve currency through supporting US dollar stablecoins and DeFi applications. The platform emphasizes the freedom of decentralized trading, allowing users to conduct private peer-to-peer transactions without relying on traditional financial intermediaries, and promoting the development of decentralized finance globally.
WLFI Team and Advisors
The WLFI team is composed of experienced cryptocurrency and decentralized finance experts, and is fully supported by the Trump family. Former US President Trump serves as the "Chief Crypto Advocate," while his sons Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Barron Trump act as Web3 ambassadors, helping to promote the platform and attract more mainstream users.
Additionally, the WLFI advisory team includes several industry-renowned figures, such as Luke Pearson from Polychain Capital and Sandy Peng from Scroll. These crypto experts bring their technical knowledge and market experience to the platform, helping WLFI better achieve its long-term goals, particularly in promoting US dollar stablecoins and expanding DeFi applications.
How WLFI Works
WLFI's operation is based on two main components: the World Liberty Financial Protocol and the World Liberty Financial Governance Platform.
The World Liberty Financial Protocol is the core of the platform, allowing users to access various third-party decentralized applications (DApps), including digital wallet service providers, stablecoin asset management, and digital asset-based lending pools. The protocol aims to support the widespread adoption of US dollar stablecoins through decentralized finance tools, reducing reliance on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and traditional financial institutions, thereby promoting the US dollar's strong position in the digital financial system.
The World Liberty Financial Governance Platform is a governance platform where $WLFI token holders can participate in making important decisions about the protocol, such as voting on protocol upgrades and strategic directions. This platform is not a fully decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), but is managed by a multi-signature wallet, ensuring a certain degree of community involvement through token holder voting.
What is $WLFI? What are the benefits of holding $WLFI? How are the tokens distributed?
$WLFI is the governance token of the WLFI platform, allowing holders to participate in the platform's governance process and vote on protocol upgrades and development directions. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, $WLFI does not have any financial rights or equity, and its sole purpose is to participate in platform governance, allowing holders to influence the future development of the protocol.
The total supply of $WLFI tokens is 100 billion, distributed as follows:
- 35% for token sales to promote widespread participation by qualified participants.- 32.5% for community growth and incentives, to drive more engagement in platform governance.- 30% for early supporters, to reward those who supported the platform's early development.- 2.5% for the team and advisors, to support the core development of the platform.
It's worth noting that $WLFI tokens are currently only available for purchase by qualified participants outside the United States. The tokens have not been registered in the US or any other financial regulatory jurisdiction, so they cannot be sold or offered to US residents due to compliance issues.
What Problems Does WLFI Solve?
WLFI aims to address two key issues. First, it focuses on the democratization of financial opportunities. The complexity of the traditional financial system and decentralized finance (DeFi) has made it difficult for ordinary users to participate in this space. WLFI simplifies the user experience, allowing more regular users to have the opportunity to participate in the innovations and opportunities of decentralized finance.
Secondly, WLFI is concerned with maintaining the global dominance of the US dollar. With the rise of digital currencies and increased international currency competition, the US dollar's position as the global reserve currency is facing challenges. WLFI hopes to support the US dollar's dominance by promoting US dollar-based stablecoins, ensuring its core position in the digital economy era.
Recent Project Progress and Challenges
WLFI only achieved 4% of its expected token sales target within 24 hours of launch, selling approximately 792.36 million tokens and raising $11 million, far short of its $300 million goal. Each token was sold for $0.015, with the average holder purchasing less than $1,000 worth of tokens. One reason for this is that $WLFI, as a non-transferable governance token, lacks the short-term profit-making appeal, which has weakened its investment attractiveness.
Additionally, WLFI recently released the "World Liberty Gold Paper," which shows that the initial $30 million in revenue will be used as a reserve to cover operating expenses and other financial obligations. World Liberty Financial has agreed that DT Marks DEFI LLC will receive 22.5 billion WLFI tokens and be entitled to 75% of the net agreement revenue, after deducting agreed-upon operating expenses and the initial financial, to pay for the rights and licenses to the names, images, and likenesses of the owners and principals.
Personal Thoughts
In general, I am not optimistic about the future potential of the WLFI project. From the content of the project's whitepaper, it can be seen that the liquidity of the $WLFI token is very limited, as all tokens will be locked indefinitely in wallets or smart contracts and cannot be transferred. This means that the project is seriously lacking in liquidity and cannot attract investors through market trading like other cryptocurrencies.
Furthermore, from the perspective of token utility, the main function of the $WLFI token is to grant holders the right to vote on certain WLF protocol affairs. However, these voting results may ultimately be overturned or prohibited due to legal and regulatory constraints, which greatly limits the governance function of the $WLFI token and fails to fully reflect the democratic governance mechanism inherent in DeFi.
More worryingly, the initial supporters hold 30% of the $WLFI tokens, which means they will have a greater voting power in the governance process and may ultimately control the key decisions, which is contrary to the idea of decentralization and brings the risk of centralization to the project.
The US presidential election is not far away, and I believe that WLFI may be a project that is being hyped up using Trump's name. According to the voting results of Polymark, Trump has a 60% chance of winning the upcoming US presidential election. If Trump ultimately wins the election, this project may experience a wave of hype as a result. However, this hype may not have any real significance for the long-term development of the project.
Based on the current situation, WLFI seems more like a channel for fundraising for Trump's election campaign. If you are looking for good investment opportunities during the US election, investing in memecoins that can be traded at any time may be more effective than $WLFI. Memecoins have stronger liquidity and can quickly capture short-term gains from market volatility, while $WLFI lacks this flexibility and liquidity, making it less attractive as an investment.
