- Family and close friends are leading Donald Trump’s DeFi project.
- World Liberty started the token sale on Tuesday.
- A venture creates controversy and doubt.
Donald Trump’s embrace of crypto is complete.
A former crypto critic, the former president and current Republican presidential candidate has done more than just endorse the industry’s goals in Washington DC.
Now he and his sons have launched World Liberty Financial, a so-called decentralized finance project for lending dollar-pegged stablecoins.
As with many of Trump’s business endeavors, World Liberty is entering a whirlwind of doubt and promises. The company has a motley crew of characters, some well known in crypto circles, others not so much.
So, who is in Trump’s strange DeFi bandwagon?
Donald Junior, Eric and Barron Trump
World Liberty’s “gold paper” lists Trump and his three sons – Donald Junior, Eric and Barron – as members of the project’s support team.
The former president is listed as the main proponent of crypto, while his sons are so-called Web3 ambassadors. In an earlier version of the gold paper, 18-year-old Barron was described as a ‘DeFi visionary’.
Trump’s youngest son was once linked to a family-themed memecoin called DJT. Martin Shkreli, the convicted investment manager and social media influencer, claimed that he and Barron created DJT, a Solana-based memecoin.
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Barron’s link to the project was never established and he made no public comment on the matter. In August, unidentified players “robust” or withdrawn most of the DJT token’s liquidity, leaving investors with worthless assets.
Eric Trump, executive vice president and trustee of the Trump Organization, is one of the main initiators of the project along with his brother. Donald Trump Jr.
The siblings first started teasing the project in social media posts in August.
Eric is no stranger to his father’s history of blurring the lines between family matters and finances. He signed the refund checks to former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who handled Stormy Daniels’ infamous hush money payments.
In June, a state jury in New York convicted Donald Trump of unlawfully covering up these payments as business expenses.
As for the Trump sons’ practical experience with crypto, there is very little. The former president anyway said they changed his mind about the industry’s potential.
Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman/Dough Finance
World Liberty is a fork of a defunct DeFi project called Dough Finance, and will be deployed on DeFi’s largest credit protocol, Aave.
Forks are not uncommon in DeFi, but Dough Finance was exploited for $2.1 million this summer. The attack occurred after developers failed to code a way for the smart contract to authenticate the actions of users trying to connect using a different protocol.
Several Dough Finance developers are behind World Liberty, including Chase Herro, aka “Hero,” and his frequent collaborator Zachary Folkman, as well as blockchain developer Bogdan Purnavel, who goes by the name 0xboga online.
Folkman and Herro are listed as co-founders alongside New York real estate mogul Steven Witkoff.
A self-described “dirtbag of the internet,” Herro has a colorful backstory filled with several failed internet ventures, including a crypto trading platform called Pacer Capital. According to Bloomberg News, he said he made a fortune from Internet advertising and traded marijuana as a young man.
The Witkoff family
Steven Witkoff is a longtime friend of Donald Trump and has donated $2 million to his campaigns. Witkoff’s sons, Alex and Zach, are listed as co-founders of World Liberty.
Witkoff described Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman as “exceptionally smart people” in an X Spaces live streaming to promote the project last month. He also said that World Liberty had been in development for “almost nine months.”
In addition, World Liberty has a staff of advisors from venture capitalists, lawyers and blockchain engineers.
Sandy Peng, co-founder of Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Scroll, is among the project’s advisors, as is Luke Pearson, general partner of Polychain Capital.
World Liberty began token sales to accredited investors on Tuesday.
Onchain data currently shows that more than 9,000 Ethereum wallet addresses are holders of the WLFI token.
Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and technology. If you would like to share story tips or information, please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.
