It has been criticized for its conflict of interest stemming from Donald Trump's involvement, including alleged secret deals with foreign entities and businesspeople who had previously been under criminal investigation or convicted.[2][3] One of World Liberty's few publicly known investors is Chinese-born billionaire Justin Sun; shortly after Trump took office in 2025, Sun invested $30 million into World Liberty and an SEC investigation into him was subsequently dropped.[4] In 2025, a firm associated with the Abu Dhabi government purchased $2 billion worth of USD1 stablecoins from World Liberty to acquire a minority stake in Binance, which resulted in Changpeng Zhao receiving a pardon.[4]
History
In September 2024, Trump announced that his sons would enter the cryptocurrency marketplace with a new venture called World Liberty Financial. In October, it announced its first initiative marketing a cryptocurrency called $WLFI. By the end of October 2024, the company had only sold $2.7 million worth of $WLFI, which abruptly changed and soared following Trump's victory in the 2024 United States presidential election.[2]
In 2025, Justin Sun acquired $WLFI tokens, reportedly for at least $75 million.[5] Sun was also named a World Liberty Financial advisor.[5] In February 2025, shortly after Trump took office as president for the second time, the Securities and Exchange Commission was reported to be backing off an investigation that it was conducting into Sun's companies.[5] The financial relationship between Trump and Sun raised potential conflicts of interest at that time.[5]
In March 2025, World Liberty announced it would launch USD1, a dollar-pegged stablecoin backed by U.S. treasuries, dollars, and other cash equivalents.[3] Steve Witkoff later announced that stablecoin USD1 would be integrated into Tron, Sun's blockchain.[3]
In May 2025, MGX, an Abu Dhabi-state backed company led by Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the Abu Dhabi royal family and National Security Advisor of United Arab Emirates, announced it would use $2 billion worth of the USD1 stablecoin launched by World Liberty to finance a deal in crypto exchange Binance.[6][7] The deal was criticized by government ethics experts over potential conflicts of interest. A Reuters investigation found that an "anonymous cryptocurrency wallet that holds $2 billion worth of USD1 received the funds between April 16 and 29". It also reported that Zach Witkoff and two other World Liberty co-founders met with Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao in Abu Dhabi, who previously pleaded guilty to money laundering.[3] Shortly after Sheik Tahnoun put money into the World Liberty Financial, the Trump administration approved a plan to allow one of Tahnoun's companies to receive hundreds of thousands of the world’s most advanced and scarce computer chips, despite national security concerns that the chips would end up in China.[7]
USD1
USD1 is a stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial. It was launched in March 2025.[8]
In June 2025, World Liberty Financial formed a joint initiative with PancakeSwap, a decentralized finance protocol operated by Binance, to promote its stablecoin, USD1.[9] Hundreds of patriotic-sounding memecoins, such as Torch of Liberty and Eagles Landing, were created by users of Chinese origin to promote USD1.[9] PancakeSwap also started a "Liquidity Drive" program, offering prizes of up to $1 million to increase trading of USD1 on its platform.[9]
As of 2025, USD1 has a circulation supply of $2 billion and most of it is held by Binance, which allows World Liberty Financial to earn around $80 million per year by investing in government bonds and money market funds.[9]
Ownership
The company has been noted for its close connections to Donald Trump. A Trump business entity owns 60 percent of World Liberty, and is entitled to 75 percent of all revenue from coin sales. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are actively involved in the management of the company, and rely on three partners, Zachary Folkman, Chase Herro, and Zach Witkoff, to maintain daily operations. The Trump family and its affiliates were given 22.5 billion units of World Liberty's coins, $WLFI; the company says those who buy $WLFI will be able to vote on certain decisions like shareholders in a traditional company.[2]
According to an analysis by The New Yorker in August 2025, the Trump family had gained $412.5 million from the venture.[10]
Management
Donald Trump's company title is "chief crypto advocate", his 19 year old son Barron Trump is listed as the project's "DeFi (decentralized finance) visionary", Ogle from Glue is listed as a key advisor, and Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. each have the title, "Web3 ambassador."[11][12][13]Steve Witkoff's son Zach Witkoff is a co-founder of the company. WLFI has been marketed as a portal for traders to invest in cryptocurrency and use those cryptocurrency assets for both borrowing and lending.[14][15]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
