WLFI faces a major test: Is the market willing to pay for the "Trump premium"?

Deng Tong, Golden Finance

On September 1, 2025, WLFI will face a major test—multiple cryptocurrency exchanges will list WLFI for trading. The US President has long been a major player in the cryptocurrency market. What are the controversies surrounding this? Will the market be willing to pay for the "Trump premium"?

I. WLFI Officially Available on Multiple Trading Platforms

On August 23, WLFI announced on the X platform that the WLFI token will be launched and available for trading on the Ethereum mainnet on September 1. Early supporters (in the $0.015 and $0.05 rounds) will unlock 20%, with the remaining 80% to be determined by community voting.

Tokens for the founding team, advisors, and partners will not be unlocked. Trading and redemption of the 20% token quota will begin at 8:00 PM Beijing time on September 1. The two-step claiming process is available on the official website: Step 1 (before September 1st): Activate the lock-up contract on the official website (this transfers WLFI to the unlocking contract); Step 2 (8 PM on September 1st or later): Claim 20% of the unlocked tokens. In the following week, several cryptocurrency exchanges announced their respective listings: OKX will launch WLFI/USDT spot trading on September 1, 2025, at 9:00 PM (UTC+8); Binance will list World Liberty Financial (WLFI) with a seed tag. WLFI deposits will open at 12:00 PM on the same day, with withdrawals expected to open at 9:00 PM on September 2, 2025; MGBX will launch WLFI spot trading at 8:00 PM (UTC+8) on September 1, 2025; Huobi HTX, Kraken, and Bithumb also announced the upcoming listing of WLFI. Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of President Trump, previously stated on X that he is working with his brother Eric Trump to promote the development of WLFI. Once listed, the WLFI token will be available on major CEXs and decentralized platforms, ensuring global governance coverage and liquidity. "Expect WLFI to be a game-changer in the crypto space."

II. The President Becomes a Major Player in the Crypto Market: Are Retail Investors Facing a Trap?

1. Will Trump's Roller Coaster Market Rally Be Repeated?

Analysts at investment bank Compass Point warn that the upcoming listing of the World Liberty Financial Token (WLFI) could pose significant risks for retail investors. "This could make the token's book value appear extremely high, as over 20% of the supply is held by members of President Trump's family. While these tokens are untradable, WLFI's resale price will be estimated based on these holdings, potentially creating another catalyst for retail traders to suffer significant losses."

The Trump token's roller-coaster market may serve as a cautionary tale. On January 17th of this year, Trump was officially launched and met with enthusiastic market enthusiasm. In just 48 hours, Trump climbed into the top 20 cryptocurrencies, with its total market capitalization soaring to $15 billion. This was just three days before Trump's inauguration as President of the United States on January 20th. However, like most meme coins, even the TRUMP token issued by the President of the United States cannot escape the fate of rapid price fluctuations. Since January of this year, the TRUMP token has struggled to recover, leaving most retail investors stranded. With the added weight of the President's influence, the launch of WLFI could also stir up a stir in the crypto market. In a Discord group survey of holders of at least 1 million WLFI, many small holders indicated they would sell if the price reached $0.47. Group operator Vincent Deriu revealed that major holders are targeting a price above $1. Many plan to sell some of their 20% allocation. Even a modest sell-off by major shareholders could overwhelm liquidity in the initial trading phase. In the long run, relying solely on sloganeering will not generate long-term price growth for WLFI. 2. Is political power reshaping the financial markets? In June of this year, Trump disclosed that he had profited $57.4 million from WLFI. In his 2025 public financial disclosure filing with the Office of Government Ethics, Trump reported holding 15.75 billion WLFI tokens. Andrew Rossow, a public affairs lawyer and CEO of AR Media Consulting, noted that "WLFI's debut tests whether political power can rewrite (not just reinterpret) US crypto law in real time." He believes that the fact that WLFI avoided formal SEC designation as a securities firm "despite its concentrated ownership and political connections" sets a precedent that could "hollow out long-standing investor protection standards." "It shows that if you have strong enough capital, user base, and brand, and are politically friendly, you may be able to obtain exemptions." "By backing off, regulators risk normalizing conflicts of interest and undermining public trust." This may prompt some institutions to move beyond strict compliance checklists and prioritize "narrative warfare" and preemptive strategies shaped by investor experience. But WLFI "is more than just a simple financial instrument; it is also WLFI's first experiment in combining political capital with digital infrastructure." This move could "set the standard" for how the crypto industry innovates. "From its dual-token architecture to the sheer size of its institutional investor base, it suggests a potential attempt to monopolize the 'compliance-friendly DeFi' market, raising questions from both a constitutional and ethical perspective." 3. Is WLFI just empty talk? WLFI's product architecture, based on the governance token WLFI and the stablecoin USD1, aims to bridge traditional finance and DeFi. Its core consists of the institutional-grade stablecoin USD1 and the community-driven governance token WLFI. The product architecture features multi-chain deployment, compliance management (including KYC and third-party audits), and a community governance mechanism. It also provides transparent and secure digital asset services through the USD1 stablecoin, which is backed by US dollar reserves. However, since its debut in September last year, WLFI has not achieved impressive results. On March 25th, WLFI announced the launch of USD1, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. On September 1st, USD1 announced that WLFI is backed 1:1 by reserve assets and will integrate with Raydium, BONK.fun, and Kamino on its first day on Solana. Over the past year, WLFI's product development has been slow, relying largely on hype to gain traction. The "decentralized financial platform" has only launched token transfers, with core DeFi scenarios like borrowing, lending, and liquidity pool creation yet to be implemented. Is the market willing to pay for the "Trump premium"? 1. The California Governor's sarcasm clearly won't go along with it. California Governor Gavin Newsom is planning to launch a "Trump Corruption Coin" in direct response to Trump's involvement in the crypto space.

He said the planned Meme coin, explicitly named after Trump’s alleged scandal, is part of his broader “Democracy Movement” initiative, with proceeds from the coin going toward redistricting and voter outreach efforts.

“We just want to increase the pressure and make people realize that this is ridiculous. This is one of the biggest con artists of our time. None of this is normal.”

The California governor also used his official press office account on Platform X last week to imitate Trump’s signature all-caps tweets: “EXCEPT WHAT IS WRITTEN AND BROADCAST IN THE FAKE NEWS, I NOW HAVE THE HIGHEST POLL NUMBERS I’VE EVER HAD, SOME IN THE 60’S AND EVEN 70’S. THANK YOU. MAKE AMERICA GAVIN AGAIN!!! — GCN” (Original text: EXCEPT WHAT IS WRITTEN AND BROADCAST IN THE FAKE NEWS, I NOW HAVE THE HIGHEST POLL NUMBERS I’VE EVER HAD, SOME IN THE 60’S AND EVEN 70’S. THANK YOU. MAKE AMERICA GAVIN AGAIN!!! — GCN)

He also opened an online store selling “Make America Great Again”-style merchandise, including red hats marked “Everything Newsom said was right!” ("NEWSOM WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!") 2. Short-term speculators are in place. Data from CoinGlass shows that open interest in WLFI token derivative contracts reached nearly $950 million in early trading on Monday, before falling to $887 million, but still up 45% over the past 24 hours. Trading volume for WLFI derivatives jumped over 535% over the past day to $4.54 billion, making it the fifth-most traded crypto derivative over the past 24 hours. The token is trading at around 34 cents on most exchanges, down from a peak of over 40 cents a week ago. Open interest, which refers to the number of active, open contracts that have not yet settled, suggests strong investor interest in WLFI, which is expected to unlock approximately 5% of its token supply in a few hours. If WLFI's price continues to hover around 34 cents, its fully diluted market capitalization could reach $34 billion based on its total supply of 100 billion tokens. This would make it the ninth-largest cryptocurrency. Prediction market Myriad shows that over 77% of speculators are betting that WLFI will trade above $0.20 on its first day. 3. Institutional investors are still on the sidelines. On June 26th, WLFI co-founder Zak Folkman stated at the crypto industry conference "Permissionless" that the platform is receiving "significant interest" from several public companies seeking to use its WLFI token as a corporate reserve asset. However, only ALT5 Sigma Corporation has since announced a $1.5 billion registered direct offering and concurrent private placement on August 11th to launch World Liberty Financial's (WLFI) treasury strategy. Not many major institutions have shown interest in WLFI: B2C2 Group has invested a cumulative $80 million in WLFI; Aqua1 Fund has subscribed to $80 million in WLFI tokens. There's been no news of top crypto institutions like Grayscale and Ark Capital entering the market. Even one of Trump's companies has expressed a lack of confidence in WLFI: it reduced its stake in the stock from 60% to 40% in June.

Fourth Summary

After WLFI's listing on major trading platforms tonight, it could experience a repeat of the surge seen by Trump in the short term. After all, many retail traders are willing to pay for the "presidential sentiment."

Whether the market is willing to pay for the "Trump premium" hinges on two key questions: whether WLFI can truly achieve practical application and long-term value; and whether US regulators will take action against this trump card. After all, Trump, who comes from a business background, knows how to use sentiment and narrative to hype up business. If investors only see the "Trump" brand as a more valuable label than the long-term value of the project, then the bubble will eventually burst.