BitMart Institute 丨WLFI In-depth Analysis: The Trump Family’s Political Empowerment and Financial Ambitions

WLFI is positioned as DeFi’s lending platform. It initially runs on the Ethereum network and uses mature DeFi protocols (such as Aave v3) to optimize the user experience rather than launching new financial tools.

1. Project introduction

WLFI is a DeFi project supported by the Trump family of US President and will be officially launched in September 2024. Its core goals are to promote the widespread use of stablecoins, strengthen the US dollar’s dominant position in the global financial system, and use cryptocurrency technology to fulfill the vision of “Make America Great Again.” WLFI is positioned as DeFi’s lending platform. It initially runs on the Ethereum network and uses mature DeFi protocols (such as Aave v3) to optimize the user experience rather than launching new financial tools.

On December 13, 2024, the World Liberty Financial community passed its first proposal and successfully deployed the Aave v3 instance. Although WLFI has made initial progress, the project team’s joint innovation is mostly new, and its long-term feasibility and innovation potential still need to be verified.

On February 12, 2025, WLFI announced the launch of “Macro Strategy”, which aims to build a strategic token reserve to support leading cryptocurrency projects such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. The strategy will help WLFI enhance stability, promote growth and build trust, while working with traditional financial institutions to promote asset tokenization. WLFI is working with multiple financial institutions to include their tokenized assets in reserves and provide transparency through public blockchain wallets. In addition, WLFI will work with partner institutions to carry out marketing and brand promotion activities to demonstrate its leadership in the field of financial innovation.

2. Team information

Trump family roles

• Donald J. Trump: Listed as the “Chief Cryptocurrency Advocate” and responsible for the project platform, but not deeply involved in technology or operations.

• Eric Trump & Donald Trump Jr. &Barron Trump: Serves as the “Web3 Ambassador” and is mainly responsible for the promotion and publicity of the project.

Core Co-Founder

• Chase Herro and Zak Folkman: The two lead the operation together, but their background is controversial due to their lack of experience in the crypto industry. Chase Herro has been involved in selling marijuana and promoting controversial tokens;Zak Folkman has founded a male dating teaching company.

• Witkoff family: Real estate developer Steven Witkoff and his sons Zach and Alex are close to the Trump family. Steven donated $2 million to the Trump campaign. After Trump won the election, he appointed him as his special envoy to the Middle East.

core technical personnel

• Rich Teo: Head of stablecoins and payments, previously founded exchange itBit and stablecoin company Paxos, and currently serves as CEO of Paxos Asia. In addition, Rich is also a consultant for the SocialFi project RepubliK.

• Corey Caplan: Head of Technology Strategy and co-founder of DeFi platform Dolomite, responsible for integrating lending and transaction functions.

• Bogdan Purnavel: Lead developer and former developer of Dough Finance.

consultant team

• Alexei Dulub: Founder of Web3 Antivirus and blockchain security expert. He has been involved in L1/L2 development since 2013.

• Sandy Peng: Co-founder of Ethereum Layer 2 Network Scroll, providing technical support for capacity expansion.

• Sun Yuchen: As a strategic consultant and largest investor (with an investment of US$75 million), promote ecological cooperation with Bochang TRON.

Information source: WLFI official website

2. Source of funds and use of tokens

WLFI’s funding source is obtained through WLFI token fundraising, and as of February 9, a total of US$455 million has been raised (data source: WLFI official website). Among them, all 21.3 billion tokens sold in the first round were sold out at a unit price of US$0.015, and the total amount of funds raised was US$319 million. The second round of public sales projects raised the unit price to US$0.05, raising a total of US$136 million as of February 9. Currently, the total value of crypto assets purchased by WLFI is roughly estimated to be approximately US$325.8 million, including important projects such as ETH, WBTC, DeFi, and RWA. However, one thing should be noted that the operation method of this project is not a fund-style issuance of WLFI tokens to raise funds and purchase mainstream project tokens with growth potential. WLFI token holders share the share of the income from the appreciation of the asset portfolio. The project white paper clearly states that the WLFI purchased by users is only for governance tokens and has no right to allocate investment and other income. Although WLFI defines itself as a DeFi lending platform, it has not yet started operating or providing DeFi services, so WLFI tokens do not currently have any value or use.

3. Total positions held

As of February 2025, the total asset value of WLFI is roughly estimated to be approximately US$327 million, the value of on-chain assets is approximately US$37.79 million, and the value of centralized exchange assets (if not sold) is approximately US$289 million (deposited in Coinbase Prime as part of fund management and business operations).

Assets on the WLFI chain (Data source: ARKM)

No	Asset	Holding	Price(USD)	Value(USD)
1	USDC	9,683,000	1	9,683,000
2	TRX	40,718,000	0.24	9,772,320
	STETH		2,664	7,172,127
4	USDT	4,373,000	1	4,373,000
5	ETH	2,084	2,663	5,451,704
6	ONDO	342,002	1.34	458,283
7	MOVE	1,634,000	0.54	882,360
TOTAL				37,792,794

WLFI CoinbasePrime Assets (Data source: SpotonChain)

No	Asset	Amount To Coinbase Prime	Price (USD)	Value (USD)
1	ETH	73,783	2,663	196,484,129
2	WBTC	553	97,027	53,648,169
	AAVE	16,585	246.7	4,091,520
4	LINK	219,149	18.79	4,117,810
5	ENA	4,941,034	0.5	2,470,517
6	MOVE	2,050,010	0.54	1,107,005
7	ONDO	114,754	1.34	153,770
8	USDC	27,859,000	1	27,859,000
TOTAL				289,931,920

4. Analysis of position structure

As a crypto project with strong connections to the Trump family, WLFI’s asset allocation strategy has attracted market attention and derived the concept of presidential selection. As of February 2025, ETH occupies the core position of WLFI’s crypto positions (accounting for 63.8%), followed by WBTC (accounting for 16.4%), and the remaining funds are located on DeFi and RWA tracks. It is worth noting that although the ETH/BTC exchange rate has continued to decline since December 2024, WLFI still chose to bucking the trend and increase its position in ETH, a move that highlights its bet on the underlying infrastructure value of the Ethereum ecosystem. In terms of the selection of segmented tracks, WLFI focuses on the top projects: DeFi field configuration leader Chainlink (LINK) and loan agreement Aave (AAVE);RWA track has heavy positions in the tokenized US bond agreement Ondo Finance (ONDO) and synthetic dollar agreement Ethena (ENA), forming a combination of old agreements + emerging agreements.

In terms of external cooperation, WLFI has formed a deep bond with Sun Yuchen, the founder of Wave Field, who has invested a total of US$75 million through HTX-related addresses, becoming the largest institutional investor. This also explains the logic of WLFI holding TRX and WBTC.

In terms of fund management, WLFI recently transferred US$307.4 million in assets to Coinbase Prime custody and unpledged 19,400 stETH units for liquidity management. Currently, the project still holds US$47.49 million in stablecoin reserves, and future investment may focus on three major directions: 1) replenishing core asset positions;2) laying out emerging RWA agreements; and 3) paying ecological cooperation fees.

1. Ethereum (ETH)

ETH: 78,610 pieces (US$209 million, accounting for 63.8%).

2. DeFi

AAVE: 16,585 pieces (US$4.091 million, accounting for 1.2%)

LINK: 219,000 pieces (US$4.117 million, accounting for 1.3%)

3.RWA

ENA: 4.941 million pieces (US$2.47 million, accounting for 0.8%)

ONDO: 456,000 pieces (US$612,000, accounting for 0.001%)

4. Sun Yuchen’s assets

WBTC: 553 pieces (US$53.648 million, accounting for 16.4%)

TRX: 40.71 million (US$9.772 million, accounting for 3%)

5. other assets

USDC: 37.54 million units (US$37.54 million, accounting for 11.5%)

USDT: 4.37 million (US$4.14 million, accounting for 1.3%)

MOVE: 3.68 million (US$1.989 million, accounting for 0.3%)

5. Logical Analysis of the WLFI Project: Political Empowerment and Financial Ambition

1. Financializing political resources: The Trump family’s fundraising tool

According to WLFI’s token economy model, up to 75% of sales revenue is directly owned by the Trump family, while the legal structure of the project deliberately avoids direct connections with Trump himself, but is publicly endorsed by family members (such as Eric Trump) to strengthen its politically bound nature. This design essentially transforms Trump’s political influence into quantifiable financial assets, making it a political fundraising tool rather than a truly decentralized financial product. Markets generally view WLFI as a “bet on the prospects of support for Trump’s crypto policies.” Previous investors ‘purchase of the token was essentially equivalent to indirect support for Trump’s campaign. This model is similar to Trump MEME tokens previously launched by Trump, both of which are alternative funding channels in addition to traditional political donations.

2. Market sentiment manipulation: The dual operation of capital and narrative

Projects can use Trump’s political influence to create market sentiment for themselves and related projects. For example, after receiving Sun Yuchen’s investment, WLFI bought a large amount of TRX and WBTC, and the current position value is approximately US$63.41 million. As of February 9, Sun Yuchen had invested a total of US$75 million, of which 84.5% was used to purchase his associated tokens. In addition, recently, WLFI co-founder Chase Herro said that he plans to use the tokens purchased by WLFI to establish a “strategic reserve.” Although he did not specify the goals and reasons for establishing a token reserve, since Trump promised to establish a token reserve during last year’s campaign, This topic has always attracted much attention. Last month, Trump signed an executive order calling for an evaluation of the feasibility of creating a digital asset reserve. In this context, WLFI’s plan to establish strategic reserves will undoubtedly strengthen market expectations for the “presidential pick” concept. By deeply binding with Trump’s encryption policy, WLFI can not only create market expectations and attract more capital inflows, but may also promote off-site cooperation between project parties and political capital, thereby further expanding its market influence.