World Liberty Archives | Protos https://protos.com/tag/world-liberty/ Informed crypto news Thu, 12 Dec 2024 19:05:11 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.6 https://protos-media.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/30110137/cropped-protos-favicon-32x32.png World Liberty Archives | Protos https://protos.com/tag/world-liberty/ 32 32 Trump promises ‘something great with crypto’ as World Liberty buys the dip https://protos.com/trump-promises-something-great-with-crypto-as-world-liberty-buys-the-dip/ Thu, 12 Dec 2024 17:57:14 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=82048 World Liberty Financial has been diversifying the assets in its multisignature wallet, apparently exchanging USDC for ether, LINK, and AAVE.

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After ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) today, Donald Trump, the United States president-elect and famous felon, announced that he “will be doing something great with crypto.”

This was in response to a question from Jim Cramer that seemed to allude to a “strategic bitcoin reserve.” Trump has previously promised to create a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile.”

Elsewhere yesterday, World Liberty Financial, a crypto project endorsed by Trump that describes him as the “Chief Crypto Advocate,” has been diversifying the assets in its multisignature wallet, apparently exchanging USDC for ether, LINK, and AAVE.

The protocol itself intends to exist as an AAVE wrapper and it has already partnered with Chainlink.

Read more: Justin Sun buys more of Trump’s WLFI than it planned to sell

Interestingly, this change in the composition of the multisignature wallet was not discussed on the governance forum and was not voted on by tokenholders. This token was explicitly marketed as a “governance token.”

The firm has sold approximately 4.45 billion tokens, with nearly half of them going to Justin Sun, a crypto entrepreneur and the target of a SEC lawsuit that alleges he participated in unlawful promotion of securities and price manipulation.

Additionally, over 22 billion tokens — that’s five times the number that has been sold to the public — went to a Trump-affiliated firm. 

This firm also receives 75% of protocol revenue, despite the fact that Trump and his children are very explicitly not directors or employees of this firm.

Trump’s wife Melania, another cryptocurrency entrepreneur whose team has been accused of wash-trading her NFT collection, rang the NYSE bell several years ago.

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Donald Trump-endorsed World Liberty Financial still 32% off revised goal https://protos.com/donald-trump-endorsed-world-liberty-financial-still-32-off-revised-goal/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 18:33:29 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=80172 World Liberty Financial is still approximately 32% off its revised fundraising goal, despite the endorsement of President-elect Trump.

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World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency project endorsed by Donald Trump, has sold approximately 1.35 billion tokens, 2% of its original goal and approximately 68% of the revised target.

In the X (formerly Twitter) Spaces call where the Trump family endorsed this token, the team promised that 63 billion of the $WLFI token would be sold to the public.

This amount was cut to 35 billion in the ‘Gold Paper,’ which was cut to 20 billion on the website, and to 2 billion in Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Thirty-five billion is still listed in the token sale terms and conditions, and 20 billion is still listed on the website. 

Even with these incredible cuts to its target, World Liberty, which was endorsed by the sexual predator and fraudster, President-elect Trump, has yet to achieve its goal.

Read more: Trump-backed World Liberty Financial stumbles at launch, website goes offline

Intriguingly, a Dune dashboard developed by ‘Seoulcalibur.eth’ suggests that over 23% of the total sales have gone to just five wallets, with the largest holding over 193,000 tokens. 

Furthermore, the token has repeatedly misrepresented itself in its marketing, claiming to be a ‘governance’ token, despite the fact that 22.5 billion tokens — more than 10 times what will be sold to the public — have been allocated to a Trump-affiliated firm, meaning the public will never truly be able to influence governance. 

This Trump-affiliated firm is also expected to receive 75% of the revenue from the protocol if it ever launches. 

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Donald Trump serves fries at McDonald’s five days after flop crypto launch https://protos.com/donald-trump-serves-fries-at-mcdonalds-five-days-after-flop-crypto-launch/ Mon, 21 Oct 2024 17:45:37 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=78045 Five days after the disappointing launch of Donald Trump's World Liberty Financial, he was filmed serving food at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.

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Just five days after the disappointing launch of Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto project, the former president and sexual predator has staged a bizarre publicity stunt that saw him dishing out fries at a Pennsylvania branch of McDonald’s.

Trump was filmed salting fries and serving ‘customers’ in a move designed to poke fun at fellow presidential hopeful Kamala Harris’ claims that she worked at the fast food chain in 1983.

He was filmed saying, “I’ve now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala” and has repeatedly called Harris’ claim a lie despite being unable to provide any evidence to back up the allegation. 

It goes without saying that Trump didn’t clock on to work a real shift. The Feasterville restaurant was reportedly shut for his arrival, ‘customers’ were screened by the US Secret Service, and nobody ordered their own food, instead receiving whatever Trump handed to them

Users on X frequently joke that the extreme losses of crypto can lead to a job at McDonald’s.

Fittingly, Trump doesn’t really work for World Liberty Financial, either.

The project’s Goldpaper listed Trump as its “Chief Crypto Advocate,” but hidden in the fine print, it states that he is not actually an employee and that his “illustrative descriptive titles” do not indicate he is one. 

However, despite this, Trump and his entities will receive 75% of protocol revenue and 22.5 billion $WLFI tokens, worth $337.5 million, to promote the project from time to time.

Read more: Trump-backed World Liberty Financial stumbles at launch, website goes offline

At the time of writing, $13.8 million of its $WLFI tokens have been sold, representing a measly 4.6% of its 20 billion-token goal. On the day of its release, it sold $12 million worth of tokens, meaning its token sale figure has changed by 0.6 percentage points since October 16. 

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Trump gets 75% of World Liberty revenue, but isn’t even an employee https://protos.com/trump-gets-75-of-world-liberty-revenue-but-isnt-even-an-employee/ Wed, 16 Oct 2024 17:14:29 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=77608 Donald Trump has endorsed World Liberty Financial but disclaimers on the website and in the 'Gold Paper' distance him from the project.

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Donald Trump, noted fraudster and former president, has lent his expertise as a salesman to World Liberty Financial, a new cryptocurrency scheme.

Sales of the project’s token, WLFI, have been slow, and a closer review of the now available website gives us more insight into the true relationship between the former president and this token.

The so-called “Gold Paper” that is published on the project’s website notes that it is “inspired by the vision of Donald J. Trump” and lists him as the “Chief Crypto Advocate.” It further lists his sons Eric, Donald Jr., and Barron as “Web3 Ambassadors.”

However, on closer inspection, the Gold Paper notes that “the use of illustrative descriptive titles for team supporters of World Liberty Financial does not indicate a director, officer or employee relationship with World Liberty Financial.

“None of Donald J. Trump, any of his family members, or any director, officer, employee or principal of the Trump Organization, DT Marks DEFI LLC, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, affiliates or principals is an officer, director, founder, or employee of, or manager, owner or operator of Word Liberty Financial or its affiliates or the WLF Platform.”

This disclaimer distancing Trump from the soon-to-be ill-fated project is repeated on the front page of the website.

Read more: VIDEO: Trump’s World Liberty Financial explained in 2 minutes

Despite making sure they were appropriately distanced from the operations of this token we are also reminded on the website that “DT Marks DeFi, LLC and its affiliates, including Donald J. Trump has or may receive approximately 22.5 billion tokens from World Liberty Financial, and will be entitled to receive significant fees for services provided to World Liberty Financial, which amount cannot yet be determined.”

To be clear, there is some exchange here, namely the Gold Paper details that, “DT Marks DEFI LLC (i) agreed to use reasonable efforts to request the owners and principals of DT Marks DEFI LLC, including Donald Trump, to promote the WLF and the WLF Protocol from time to time, and (ii) grant WLF and certain related parties the right and license to use the name image and likeness of the owners and principals of DT Marks DEFI LLC, subject to certain terms and conditions.

It continues, “For these services and rights, World Liberty Financial agrees that DT Marks DEFI LLC will receive 22.5 billion $WLFI tokens and a right to receive 75% of the net protocol revenues as defined in the services agreement after deduction of agreed operating expenses and the initial treasury reserve.”

Read more: Who is behind World Liberty Financial, Trump’s new crypto?

So, despite not being an employee, director, or officer, Trump and his related entities can earn 75% of the protocol revenues, as well as more tokens than are currently for sale on the website.

To add insult to injury, Trump’s efforts to “promote” this project “from time to time” have resulted in approximately 800 million tokens being sold so far — less than 4% of the amount he received. A good deal if you can get it.

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Donald Trump’s WLFI token sale 96% short of $300 million goal https://protos.com/donald-trumps-wlfi-token-sale-96-short-of-300-million-goal/ Wed, 16 Oct 2024 16:26:54 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=77611 World Liberty Financial set lofty goals for the ICO of its Donald Trump-endorsed token, WLFI. It isn’t even 10% of the way there.

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Donald Trump’s new crypto project World Liberty Financial has faceplanted again after it was revealed that, three days into its public token offering, insiders sold less than 4% of their goal of 20 billion WLFI tokens.

This news comes after researchers discovered that World Liberty hired workers from hacked crypto project Dough Finance, X (formerly Twitter) suspended the Rug Radio presenter who hosted its debut, and the website repeatedly crashed on its token sale day.

World Liberty Financial’s website admits that it still hasn’t sold 19.2 billion of the tokens it had hoped to. Indeed, as of publication time, it has raised less than $12 million of the intended $300 million.

Although insiders claimed to have whitelisted over 100,000 wallets for the initial coin offering (ICO), fewer than 10% of those wallets have participated.

As disappointments proliferated, its team began damage control.

  • The project cut its target for token sales to public buyers from 63% to 35%.
  • It named its ICO whitepaper a ‘gold paper’ to buffer its claims from legal recourse.
  • The team modified the promise to make WLFI tokens transferable after 12 months, adding a disclaimer that reads, “You should assume that the tokens are non-transferable indefinitely.”

Read more: Donald Trump’s crypto project copied code from hacked app, report

Even if World Liberty Financial managed to hit its full 20 billion target, Trump would still own more. As compensation for his endorsements, he will own 22.5 billion WLFI tokens plus “significant fees for services.”

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Trump-backed World Liberty Financial stumbles at launch, website goes offline https://protos.com/trump-backed-world-liberty-financial-stumbles-at-launch-website-goes-offline/ Tue, 15 Oct 2024 16:42:12 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=77491 World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency project endorsed by Donald Trump, appears to have launched, though the website was taken offline.

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World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency project backed by Donald Trump and his sons, appears to have launched, though the website has struggled under the initial load, repeatedly going offline.

Blockchain data suggests that the token currently has over 2,900 holders, and 0x5be9a4959308A0D0c7bC0870E319314d8D957dBB, an address that seems to be a multisignature wallet for this project, holds approximately $3.7 million in ether, $1.2 million in tether, and $240,000 worth of USDC. 

It was previously reported that over 100,000 investors had provided the documents required to be placed on the whitelist ahead of the token’s launch.

However, the launch has not all been smooth sailing with the World Liberty Financial website struggling to stay online and appearing to be frequently inaccessible. 

What is World Liberty Financial?

Read more: Scammers cash in as Donald Trump fumbles World Liberty Financial launch

World Liberty Financial is a thin wrapper around the Aave lending protocol that counts the former president and his three sons as members. It has optimistically claimed that it will “restructure where the United States debt is held” and threaten the current financial system. However, details on how it could ever achieve either of those things have been scant.

This project appears to have been forked from the recently hacked Dough Finance and includes many of the same team members, including Zachary Folkman and Chase Herro. Herro and Folkman previously led Subify, a Patreon alternative that promised to “stand the test of time” before quietly failing.

Trump has previously experimented in the NFT space, but this is the first time he has been willing to lend his name in the middle of a campaign to a project that has claimed its goal is to usurp the financial system of the country he intends to lead.

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VIDEO: Trump’s World Liberty Financial explained in 2 minutes https://protos.com/video-trumps-world-liberty-financial-explained-in-2-minutes/ Thu, 10 Oct 2024 13:39:22 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=77063 World Liberty Financial marks the first time that a former president has promoted a product that promises to disrupt the US financial system.

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Donald Trump, along with his sons Donald Jr., Eric, and Barron, and property developer Steve Witkoff and his son Zach, is preparing to launch World Liberty Finance, a thin wrapper around the Aave lending platform that appears to be forked from the recently hacked Dough Finance.

The project will apparently focus on “liquidity” and will “restructure where the American debt is being held.”

If this is indeed the case, the project would likely mark the first time that a former United States president in the middle of a campaign has explicitly promoted a product that has promised to disrupt the American financial system.

Read more: Who is behind World Liberty Financial, Trump’s new crypto?

Trump will reportedly serve as the “Chief Crypto Advocate,” a significant change in stance from a man who once said of Bitcoin, “it just seems like a scam.” He and his wife Melania have also previously dabbled in the NFT space.

Access to the token in the United States is limited to accredited investors who are willing to go through a know-your-customer process, and it will initially not be transferrable.

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Scammers cash in as Donald Trump fumbles World Liberty Financial launch https://protos.com/scammers-cash-in-as-donald-trump-fumbles-world-liberty-financial-launch/ Wed, 18 Sep 2024 10:27:12 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=75290 Donald Trump previewed World Liberty Financial for over two weeks, giving scammers plenty of time to steal money from impatient suckers.

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With Donald Trump busy fumbling the launch of his newest crypto offering, World Liberty Financial, phony projects have been cashing in on the frenzy.

From August 29 through late Monday evening, the only thing Trump had said about his project was its name. This left the rest to the world’s imagination and opened the door to fakes and lookalikes who duly lured in suckers and their money.

From September 3 through at least noon on September 17 — the day after Trump’s launch — a fake website ranked ninth among Google’s search engine results for the query ‘World Liberty Financial.’ The website promoted a fake governance token, WL, which has sadly traded over $3 million since inception.

A dizzying assortment of fake governance tokens exists for World Liberty Financial, which has not yet launched an official version. A brand new — and very fake — WLFI on Binance Smart Chain traded over $50 million in the 24 hours after Trump said he would issue the real WLFI sometime in the future.

A fake WLFI on Ethereum has traded over $7 million over the past three days while another fake on Solana traded almost $1 million. On Coinbase’s Base, another traded over $60,000.

Read more: Who is behind World Liberty Financial, Trump’s new crypto?

Of course, transaction volumes do not necessarily equate to money lost. Wash trading and self-dealing is rampant across crypto exchanges and so many of these figures could include insiders washing money in a merry-go-round to create the fake impression of trading activity or credibility.

It is virtually impossible to know how much money the founders of these fake projects have stolen.

Even more fake World Liberty Financial scams

World Liberty Financial does have a Telegram channel, but many fake channels drew in thousands of suckers. One imposter attracted more than 70,000 by promising giveaways worth up to $15,000. Once inside the fake channel, administrators encouraged users to connect their Metamask wallet and grant permissions that permitted the draining of funds.

Hackers also overtook the X (formerly Twitter) social media accounts of Trump family members to promote fake crypto giveaways during the two weeks leading up to the launch of World Liberty Financial.

Read more: The entire DJT token drama in one article

Even before Trump named his project, professional grifters were busy co-opting his surname for their own purposes. Formerly imprisoned felon Martin Shkreli claimed that he had earned the endorsement of Trump’s son Barron for a meme coin, DJT.

Sadly, the fake coin traded hundreds of millions of dollars while declining 97% from its high to date.

In short, Trump’s latest crypto project has not even launched, yet in the confusion, thousands of people have already lost money. Even staunchly pro-Trump news station Fox News was disappointed in Trump’s launch of World Liberty Financial. On Monday, it lamented its “thin” and “uneven rollout.” Wired called the event “meandering” and “short on details.”

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Who is behind World Liberty Financial, Trump’s new crypto? https://protos.com/who-is-behind-world-liberty-financial-trumps-new-crypto/ Tue, 17 Sep 2024 17:17:41 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=75226 World Liberty Financial, the new crypto project hosted by Donald Trump, has fraudsters and executives from failed crypto projects onboard.

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Donald Trump has joined World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency project advised by his children and run by fraudsters and executives from failed and hacked projects. 

The protocol is a thin wrapper around borrowing-lending protocol Aave, which resembles the earlier Dough Finance.

CoinDesk reporting has suggested that the project’s WLFI governance token will be non-transferable and will reserve 70% of the supply for project insiders — a truly massive amount that raises significant concerns about whether it can ever truly be ‘decentralized’ as it promises.

This number has been challenged in an X Spaces with the team after claims that 63% will be sold to the public. 

Several team members referenced ease of use and earning yield on stablecoins as justifications for the project’s existence and, somewhat uniquely, the governance token for this project is intended to be non-transferable.

Here, we run down the major parties involved with the project and why it could be one of the first times that a former United States president is willing to endorse a project explicitly aimed at disrupting the country’s financial system

Trump family members and World Liberty Financial

Donald Trump, the financial fraudster, sexual predator, and former president, has flip-flopped on cryptocurrency, changing from “it just seems like a scam” to a full-throated endorsement of both this project and a willingness to license his image for NFT projects.

He is reportedly listed as a ‘Chief Crypto Advocate’ for World Liberty Financial.

Meanwhile, Eric Trump, who previously signed the Stormy Daniels hush money reimbursement checks to Michael Cohen, has decided that he is ready to pursue a future as the project’s ‘Web3 Ambassador.’ 

Donald Trump Jr., who previously threatened GOP lawmakers for refusing to help his father perform an autogolpe, is also reportedly signed up as another ‘Web3 Ambassador.’

Finally, Barron Trump, whom Martin Shkreli has previously accused of being involved with the DJT token — though that was never proven — is now a ‘DeFi visionary‘ for World Liberty Financial.

Dough Finance is basically World Liberty Financial

World Liberty Financial appears to be a fork of the recently hacked Dough Finance; both World Liberty Financial and Dough Finance reportedly rely on Aave for the actual borrowing and lending. 

The World Liberty Financial team includes several key team members from Dough Finance, including Zachary Folkman, Chase ‘Hero’ Herro, Octavian Lojnita, and ‘0xboga.’

Additionally, screenshots obtained from the since-deleted code for World Liberty Financial by CoinDesk show a striking similarity to Dough Finance.

Lojnita, who is the Smart Contracts Lead, previously worked at Dough Finance.

The pseudonymous ‘0xboga,’ who is listed as a front-end developer, also previously worked on Dough Finance.

Folkman was a pickup artist who hosted seminars for desperate men; he was additionally one of the people who built Dough Finance and is now one of the faces of this project. 

Herro, who previously went to prison for drug-related charges, is also the founder of a defunct crypto trading firm Pacer Capital, and was one of the people who built Dough Finance. He is now also one of the faces of World Liberty Financial. 

Folkman and Herro also worked together on ‘mastermind’ groups and ran a YouTube channel where they would show themselves trading cryptocurrency and offering ‘entrepreneurial’ advice. 

Subify quietly shut down

Herro and Folkman are also the founders of Subify, which purports to be a “no censorship” subscription platform that “will never demonetize or censor you.”

Subify’s terms and conditions refer to it as a Puerto Rican limited liability company. However, a review of Puerto Rico’s corporate registry says that the firm Subify LLC, which was founded by Folkman, has been canceled since the end of 2023. 

Protos attempted to reach out to Subify to clarify this issue; unfortunately, the email listed on the website was undeliverable, and the phone number is now associated with a plumber.

Protos was able to send a message on Instagram to the Subify account but has yet to receive a response.

Despite these apparent issues with Subify, the website it created for Logan Paul appears to still be up and still proudly proclaims that it is “Powered by Subify.” 

Protos tried to send an email to the Maverick Club to determine if these issues with Subify will affect it, but that email was also undeliverable.

Maverick by Logan Paul LLC, the entity that previously operated this Maverick Club, has been renamed to Better Call Paul LLC.

Subify seems to have quietly stopped operating, with no mention of the cessation on its X account, its TikTok, or its Instagram. 

World Liberty Financial Advisors

The project has talked to several lawyers in the crypto space. Alex Golubitsky, who works at MetaLeX Pro, is an advisor to the project and was reportedly listed as “Legal Counsel” in a whitepaper that CoinDesk reviewed. MetaLeX Pro also offered advice, and it originally disclosed it would receive 1.3% of the token supply. It has since claimed it “will not be retaining any tokens.”

Additionally, Rafael Yakobi, a managing partner at The Crypto Lawyers, has been announced as an advisor.

CoinDesk has also reported some other Trump friends are involved, including Steve Witkoff, a property developer whose role is reportedly ‘Institutional Investment.’

Witkoff’s son Zach is also involved, and his role is reportedly listed as ‘Intelligence.’ Zach’s LinkedIn says he is the president of Witkoff Capital, which is described as a “family office with a focus on Blockchian [sic], PropTech, FinTech, and consumer products.” 

The project has been announcing a significant number of other advisors through X. These include Sandy Peng, the co-founder of Ethereum Layer-2 Scroll.

Other cryptocurrency projects are also represented here, including ‘ogle’ the founder of yet-to-be-launched Glue Blockchain, and Alexei Dulub of ‘Web3 Antivirus.’

Corey Caplan of Dolomite, another ‘DeFi’ lending platform, was initially announced as an advisor, but during a recent Spaces was announced as a team member. 

Luke Pearson, a general partner at Polychain Capital has also been announced as an advisor. Some will remember Polychain for its role as an investor in Luna before its untimely collapse

Endorsements

Even folks who are not advisors to this platform find its existence exciting. Jeremy Allaire, the co-founder and CEO of Circle, the second-largest USD-pegged stablecoin, quote posted a World Liberty Financial post about stablecoins to say, ‘Aligned.’

Others, like Gabriel Shapiro, another partner at MetaLex Pro, have stated that he believes it’s “been a very thorough legal process with an AmLaw 50 law firm also advising” and added that he believes it’s “some kind of lightweight non-custodial feeder into Aave with a locked governance token.”

The Spaces with the former President

On the evening of Monday, September 16th, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Barron Trump, Steve Witkoff, Alex Witkoff, Zach Witkoff, Chase Herro, Zach Folkman, and other members of the World Liberty Financial team participated in an X Spaces hosted by RugRadio.

During the course of the call, the former president did not mention World Liberty Financial nor provide any additional insight into his role with the project. 

Trump Jr. emphasized the uncertainty despite the fact that they’re working with the “best” lawyers. He also noted that he has received education on how to use cryptocurrency from Folkman.

Herro noted the project was for the common man and stated the project focuses on “liquidity” and “accessibility,” presumably meaning that World Liberty Financial intends to be easier to use than Aave, though tangents about stablecoins make it somewhat less clear what is intended. Herro claims to want to “restructure where the American debt is being held.”

Folkman described the platform as being targeted at folks who already have cryptocurrency assets but who have yet to realize the potential to lend and borrow against those assets. Much of his explanation focused on how this platform would be somehow more simple to use, and also talked about generating yields on stablecoins.

Read more: Donald Trump sells the clothes off his back in latest NFT promotion

Folkman also described a time when he had to explain Aave to Eric Trump, a “technically savvy guy.”

Eric Trump’s answers also focused on usability and he mentioned how he wants to run a golf club where you can pay entirely with cryptocurrency. 

Towards the very end of the X Spaces, the team finally described the token, noting that it intends to sell governance tokens that will be non-transferrable and that in the United States only accredited investors will be able to invest.

This will be enforced with a “whitelist KYC process.” The team additionally claimed that it will have 63% of the tokens sold to the public. It additionally claims that 20% has been set aside for the team. 

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Early warnings that Trump’s DeFi project would flop https://protos.com/early-warnings-that-trumps-defi-project-would-flop/ Tue, 17 Sep 2024 11:16:33 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=75158 Last night’s underwhelming launch party for Donald Trump’s new DeFi crypto project was predicted many days in advance.

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Donald Trump launched his World Liberty Financial crypto project last night on a live social audio room on X (formerly Twitter). And it was, as some had speculated, a complete flop.

The announcement was made from a room in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort alongside Farokh Sarmad, co-founder of the aptly-named Rug Radio.

Trump had previously previewed the announcement on August 29, and during the following two weeks, many commentators predicted the launch wouldn’t go well.

Indeed, Nic Carter earned over 170,000 views for his plea for Trump to cancel the launch, while CoinDesk linked four World Liberty team members to rugged crypto project Dough Finance. Bloomberg, meanwhile exposed World Liberty marijuana and “get rich quick” course salesman, Chase Herro, who spoke during the social audio space yesterday.

Timeline of the Trump DeFi announcement

The first topic of conversation addressed during the announcement was the recent assassination attempt at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf course. For some time, Farokh and Trump exclusively discussed non-crypto topics.

It wasn’t until the listener tally hit over 170,000 concurrent listeners that the duo finally pivoted to crypto, specifically Trump’s NFT collections.

Incredibly, however, the conversation ended not long after with no mention of World Liberty Financial by Trump.

After a brief intermission — and after Trump had left the room from which Rug Radio was broadcasting — associates and family members joined the conversation. Although Farokh mentioned the project once more, details were few and far between.

Read more: Did Martin Shkreli violate his parole by launching DJT coin with Barron Trump?

More than an hour into the interview and with listeners dwindling to less than 90,000, Trump’s son Donald Jr. revealed that the project would somehow involve real estate.

Another 10,000 concurrent listeners left and Farokh moved on to another family member.

Shortly after, someone mentioned that stablecoins would be somehow involved. Another 5,000 left.

According to Don Jr., all stablecoins are somehow backed by US treasuries.

With less than 75,000 listeners and 90 minutes after the start of the broadcast, Farokh tried to move along to Trump’s youngest son, 18-year-old Baron. However, the teenager had already left.

In short, the launch was an unmitigated disaster. Such a disaster, in fact, World Liberty Financial didn’t even bother to post any details in its Telegram channel.

Just two hours into the meandering show, fewer than 47,000 listeners remained — a 72% decline from its peak above 170,000. By the time someone said World Liberty Financial would issue a “non-transferable” governance token sometime in the future and exclusively to accredited investors, fewer than 40,000 remained.

Nothing happened. No token was launched and few attendees even understood what the project was.

As it turned out, the predictions of a flop came true.

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