Former president and current Republican candidate Donald Trump announced on September 30 through an X post that the whitelists for eligible persons were now live. The World Liberty Financial DeFi platform confirmed the whitelists were available to all non-US persons and accredited U.S. investors only.
The WLFI claimed its mission was to bring financial freedom to the global crypto community regardless of bank balances or background. WLFI‘s plan for all Americans was to provide access to opportunities and tools otherwise restricted on common platforms for a long time.
Trump calls on Americans to join historic moment
I promised to Make America Great Again, this time with crypto. @WorldLibertyFi is planning to help make America the crypto capital of the world! The whitelist for eligible persons is officially open – this is your chance to be part of this historic moment. Join:…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2024
Trump announced the opening of WLFI’s whitelists in a recent X post, describing it as America’s foundation for becoming the world’s crypto capital. The Trump-backed DeFi platform confirmed that it required KYC, limiting access to the 63% of WLFI tokens set for public sale to accredited investors only.
According to the WLFI DeFi project, the KYC (know your customer) verification process was now available on the website. The WLFI said that it aimed to offer financial services without traditional intermediaries. It also mentioned that further access to specific details of the project would be given only to persons who passed their KYC process.
The WLFI’s distribution plan suggested that 63% would be reserved for public sale, incentives, and rewards would account for 17%, and 20% would be for team compensation.
“I promised to Make America Great Again, this time with crypto…this is your chance to be part of this historic moment.”
The KYC mostly entailed user identification through identification documents such as a driver’s license or a passport to satisfy standards for AML (anti-money laundering). The WLFI token was unlike other crypto projects since it offered no profits, losses, or shares in the platform.
The WLFI governance model and regulatory concerns
The governance-only WLFI token was confirmed during an early September live X event. It was disclosed that the token would be a non-fungible (NFT) and dedicated to governance. It was clarified that WLFI holders could make proposals and vote regarding the platform’s future. Notably, the general public would not be allowed to invest in the WLFI NFTs, which would only be available to accredited investors.
Charles Hoskinson, Cardano’s creator, raised concerns over the Trump-backed project’s political affiliation and regulatory risk. Hoskinson believed that the WLFI NFT would be risky since it could easily attract the attention of U.S. authorities, including the U.S. SEC and the Department of Justice. He also explained the dangerous polarized perception that the DeFi project would be exposed to in the crypto space due to its political connections.
Crypto enthusiasts criticized Trump’s decision to promote decentralized crypto as a family business rather than for America. Colin Talks Crypto questioned Trump’s ‘unwise’ release of a DeFi protocol, saying that the former president should have limited himself to just making crypto safe for the users. He pointed out that the majority of the people who could lose money during the next bear market were likely to pin their losses on Trump, which was something a president shouldn’t be linked to.
Additional reporting by Noor Bazmi
