- World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a DeFi project backed by former U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons, is facing heightened criticism over its heavy insider allocation, further raising concerns about decentralization.
- A staggering 70% of the WLFI tokens will be set aside for insiders, including the project’s founders, team members, and service providers, leaving 30% of the total token supply reserved for distribution.
World Liberty Financial (WLFI) a DeFi project backed by former U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons is facing growing scrutiny due to its contentious allocation structure raising concerns about its commitment to decentralization.
According to a draft obtained by a leading news outlet, a staggering 70% of the WLFI tokens will be set aside for insiders. This includes the project’s founders, team members, and service providers. This just leaves 30% of the total token supply reserved for distribution, with some proceeds also benefiting the “insiders.”
Paradoxically, World Liberty Finance, promoted by former President Donald Trump and his family, is marketed as a solution to the “rigged” traditional financial system. In fact, the DeFi platform has been promoted to be “putting the power of finance back in the hands of the people.” Strangely enough, it seems like it’s the complete opposite.
Heightened criticism has risen arguing that such unequal distribution of the WLFI token centralizes authority rather than distributing it, a principle many blockchain projects strive for.
Ignoring the precedent set by other blockchain projects, some experts have expressed criticism of the project. One adviser has even gone as far as calling the allocation” a joke.” Blockchain projects like Cardano, the founding companies, only retained 20% of ADA. Also, Ethereum and Genesis block set aside 16.6% of ETH for early contributors. In addition, word has it that Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, holds approximately 5% of the total Bitcoin supply.
The insider allocation has presented queries about whether the World Liberty Foundation is genuinely focused on building a decentralized financial platform or riding the coattails of the family name. Normally, Proceeds from token pre-sales are kept for projects that will foster growth and long-term development of the project. However, concerns are growing that WLFi’s insiders may cash in rather than look into the platform’s long-term success.
Noticing this, a spokesperson for the World Liberty Financial stated that:
The team is working with a lot of contributors, and we’re not quite sure which version [of the white paper] you are referring to at the moment, but they have not finalized their tokenomics yet, All the information we’ve shared so far that is final/approved can be found on WLF’s Twitter (X) and Telegram. Those will be the main channels for any announcements.
Despite the criticism, World Liberty Financial has ambitious goals, which include making the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet.” Also, the project white paper states that it aims to preserve the U.S. dollar’s role as the global financial settlement, which is “now under attack by foreign nation-states.”
