Recently, former President Trump's official meme token, $TRUMP, has been in the spotlight, drawing attention to the World Liberty Financial (WLF) project, which is endorsed by members of the Trump family. For those who missed the $TRUMP hype, some are now considering whether to invest in WLF's token, $WLFI. The first round of fundraising for this project ended on January 20, with the second round immediately launched on its official website. At a price of $0.05 per token, should you buy in?
Let’s first review the project basics, analyze the fundraising progress, and then provide a conclusion.
The WLF project was founded by two relatively unknown entrepreneurs along with one of Trump’s sons. The project is endorsed by Trump himself and other family members and has brought on prominent crypto figures, such as Justin Sun, as advisors. The stated goal of the project is to promote the adoption of a USD stablecoin and maintain the U.S. dollar’s status as the global reserve currency. The project focuses on creating a lending protocol (DeFi) and a stablecoin wallet.
The project will issue 100 billion governance tokens on the Ethereum mainnet. The whitepaper explicitly states that these tokens do not grant holders profit-sharing rights. Of the total supply, 35% (35 billion tokens) will be publicly offered, while the remaining 65% will go to the community, early supporters, and the team.
The first round began on October 15, 2024, with the goal of selling 20 billion tokens at $0.015 each, aiming to raise $300 million, which corresponds to a valuation of $1.5 billion.
Within the first 20 minutes, 220 million tokens were sold. Later, the project received support from Justin Sun and Masayoshi Son. However, the first round did not sell out quickly and dragged on.
After Trump launched his official meme token on January 18, 2025, the WLF project gained renewed attention. On January 20, the first round of fundraising was oversubscribed, with 21.3 billion tokens sold, raising $319.5 million.
Capitalizing on the momentum, the project immediately launched its second round, aiming to sell 5 billion tokens at $0.05 each, raising $250 million, corresponding to a $5 billion valuation.
As of now, the project's website shows the following progress chart:
The chart combines data from both fundraising rounds, which may be misleading. Let’s break it down:
● Total sale volume: 25.00B refers to the total tokens sold across both rounds (25 billion), not just the 5 billion tokens in the second round.
● 22.26B tokens sold includes the 21.3 billion tokens sold in the first round and 960 million tokens sold in the second round.
● 2.744B tokens remaining represents the 2.744 billion tokens still available in the second round.
This means that the second round is only about 20% complete, despite the progress bar suggesting it’s nearly sold out. Additionally, the $0.05 price applies only to the second round, not the cumulative 25 billion tokens.
The first round raised $319.5 million, and as of January 21, 2025, the second round has raised $48 million by selling 960 million tokens at $0.05 each. In total, the project has raised approximately $370 million.
From arkm.com, the project's wallet (0x5be) currently holds assets worth approximately $350 million. These holdings are distributed as follows:
● 60%: ETH and stETH
● 20%: USD stablecoins
● 15%: BTC
● 5%: Various DeFi tokens, including AAVE (decentralized lending), LINK (oracle infrastructure), ENA (algorithmic stablecoin), and TRX (a major stablecoin transfer network founded by Justin Sun).
The portfolio seems professionally allocated among major projects. However, it’s important to note that this is not a fund structure. According to the whitepaper, $WLFI tokens are purely governance tokens. The $370 million raised belongs entirely to the project team. While the team has made sound allocations, any value or profit generated from these assets does not benefit $WLFI holders.
Currently, the fully diluted valuation (FDV) of Uniswap, the largest decentralized exchange, is $13 billion, while AAVE, the largest decentralized lending platform, has an FDV of $6 billion. These industry leaders have been operating for years and remain dominant in their fields, yet their valuations are only in the $5–15 billion range. In contrast, WLF, which currently has no product, is valued at $5 billion in its second round of fundraising. This price appears inflated, leaving little room for growth. To justify its valuation, WLF must achieve a business scale comparable to Uniswap and AAVE, or surpass them to offer substantial returns.
Additionally, the project plans to sell a total of 35 billion tokens, with 10 billion tokens still to be sold after the current 25 billion. The valuation for the first round was $1.5 billion, and for the second round, $5 billion. It’s likely that the third round will target a valuation of at least $10 billion, with the token price rising from $0.015 to $0.05 to $0.10. However, raising funds at a $10 billion valuation will be challenging. If the project adheres to the whitepaper's schedule, it may take a long time before the token becomes tradable.
Finally, all tokens sold during fundraising represent future sell pressure, as do the 65% of tokens held by the project team. Strong buy-side demand is needed to absorb this sell pressure, which requires the project to achieve significant scale and profitability, ideally on par with industry leaders. Otherwise, investors may face losses. Given the project’s operating model, it resembles the VC token model often criticized in the crypto space.
Can this project match or surpass the industry leaders? Based on the team alone, it’s unlikely. The two founders have experience in small offline businesses, but achieving success in Web3 is a different challenge. The only hope lies in Trump granting the company “exclusive rights” to monopolize a lucrative business. Thus, buying $WLFI is essentially a bet on this possibility.
Trump’s family is an outsider in the crypto space, and leveraging celebrity influence to launch a meme token is a more viable path. I personally lean toward buying the couple’s meme tokens at a low price rather than participating in $WLFI. The above analysis is for reference.