Trump-backed World Liberty Financial denies token sales

World Liberty Financial claims it hasn’t sold any of its WLFI tokens amid rumors that the decentralized finance (DeFi) project was pursuing token swaps with various blockchain projects whose tokens it acquired in recent months.

According to a Feb. 3 social media post, World Liberty said it routinely shuffles its crypto holdings as part of its treasury management strategy.

“To be clear, we are not selling tokens — we are simply reallocating assets for ordinary business purposes,” the post said.

World Liberty Financial, which is linked to the family of US President Donald Trump, issued the statement less than two hours after Blockworks reported that the company was pursuing token swaps with various crypto projects.

Citing anonymous sources, the report claims that World Liberty was looking to sell at least $10 million worth of yet-to-be-launched WLFI tokens in exchange for buying the same amount of that project’s native cryptocurrency. The sale would come with a 10% fee, the report said.

Presumably, World Liberty reached out to projects whose tokens it already purchased, including Ether (ETH), USD Coin (USDC), Chainlink (LINK), Aave (AAVE), Tron (TRX) and Uniswap (UNI), among others. 

Onchain data shows that World Liberty Financial currently holds $373 million worth of cryptocurrencies, the largest being ETH and Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). As Cointelegraph reported, World Liberty’s most recent purchase occurred in the final week of January, where it scooped up $10 million worth of ETH.

Cointelegraph reached out to several projects to confirm whether they received a token swap offer from World Liberty Financial. One project confirmed that it had not received any such offer from World Liberty.

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“Massive demand” for WLFI tokens

The Trump family launched World Liberty Financial in the lead-up to the November presidential election. Once fully operational, the platform will let crypto holders earn interest through various DeFi protocols and borrow against their assets.

By Jan. 20, the project claimed to have reached its goal of selling 20% of its token supply, adding that it plans to sell an additional 5% of the remaining tokens due to “massive demand and overwhelming interest.”

With a total supply of 100 billion WLFI, World Liberty has earmarked 25 billion tokens for sale. The initial sale of 20 billion tokens netted the project $300 million at a token price of $0.015.

Tron founder Justin Sun emerged as the largest WLFI buyer following a $30-million purchase in November. In January, Sun claimed he was investing an additional $45 million into the project.

Despite its success, World Liberty has faced its fair share of criticism, with Trump’s former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci calling it a “scammy grift that threatens to undermine” the legitimate cryptocurrency industry. 

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban called the project’s launch an act of “desperation” by Trump, adding that he didn’t find anything “innovative or valuable” about it.

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