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▲ Donald Trump, WLFI/ChatGPT generated image ©
A virtual asset project led by the family of former U.S. President Donald Trump has sent shockwaves through the market as evidence emerged that it secretly raked in massive funds through undisclosed sales. While ordinary investors suffered painful losses due to the plummeting coin prices, fierce criticism is mounting that only project insiders are profiting, and the controversy over morality is spreading uncontrollably.
According to cryptocurrency media outlet Bitcoinist on May 2 (local time), Bloomberg reported that World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a project sponsored by the Trump family, earned hundreds of millions of dollars through undisclosed token sales. After raising $550 million in two funding rounds conducted from October 2024 to January 2025, the project quietly sold an additional 5.9 billion WLFI tokens to accredited private investors. Based on the token price of $0.05 during the second funding round, this undisclosed sale is estimated to have raised approximately an additional $295 million.
This secretive fundraising came to light when the information analysis platform Tokenomist AI investigated governance-related documents. The analysis revealed that the amount of tokens allocated to founders, internal teams, and partners subtly increased without clear explanation. While the project team explained it as a customized transaction for specific buyers, the identity of the buyers was thoroughly concealed. In particular, 75% of the proceeds were designed to flow to entities associated with the Trump family, igniting controversy over conflicts of interest.
Internal management disputes also escalated into a messy lawsuit. Justin Sun, founder of the virtual asset Tron (TRX), who invested $45 million to purchase 3 billion tokens and received an additional 1 billion as an advisor, recently filed a lawsuit against the project. He strongly protested that the project team blacklisted his wallet address, freezing his tokens and revoking his voting rights. He also fiercely criticized a new governance proposal to lock up early investors' tokens for at least two more years, calling it "coercive global tyranny."
To make matters worse, market confidence plummeted as it was revealed that the project team deposited 5 billion of its held tokens into Dolomite, a decentralized lending protocol, and borrowed $75 million worth of stablecoins. Amid a series of negative developments, the token price plunged to an all-time low of $0.054 on Friday. This represents an 83% drop from its all-time high of $0.33 recorded on September 1, 2025. Professor Eswar Prasad of Cornell University strongly criticized the current reality as surreal, where the Trump family profits from a business with obvious conflicts of interest while thoroughly blocking other investors from sharing in the profits.
*Disclaimer: This article is for investment reference only, and we are not responsible for any investment losses based on it. The content should be interpreted for informational purposes only.*
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