The two founders of Dough Finance have seemingly forgotten the promises they made to supporters and have since moved on to a new crypto venture—World Liberty Financial (WLFI)—which is now led by the President’s two sons.

In 2011, Folkman and Herro founded Dough Finance, a decentralized exchange platform enabling high-risk, leveraged crypto trades.

But in July 2024, the platform suffered a catastrophic hack due to vulnerabilities in its code, resulting in over $2.5 million in user losses.

In the aftermath of the breach, Folkman sent out a message through a Telegram chat promising users that the team would ensure every single investor was compensated:

“We will not stop until everyone is made whole.”

But as time went on, both founders went completely silent. The project’s Telegram and X (formerly Twitter) accounts were abandoned, and one private chat group was even deleted entirely, according to former members.

While hundreds of investors were left in limbo, hoping for a miracle, both Folkman and Herro had already abandoned ship, redirecting their efforts into a new venture—World Liberty Financial.

Although Trump adopted the title of Chief Crypto Advocate and his sons were branded as Web3 Ambassadors, Herro and Folkman were named co-founders and operational leaders of WLFI.

Folkman and Herro Moves on to WLFI, while Dough Finance if forgotten

WLFI rapidly became one of the fastest-growing crypto projects, reportedly raising over $550 million in token sales and funneling hundreds of millions to the Trump family and its partners.

Despite unresolved losses from Dough Finance, Folkman and Herro have continued to profit from their new venture—collecting at least $65 million, while former Dough users have received little to no compensation, often only in nearly worthless DOUGH tokens.

Today, Dough’s website is locked and nearly empty, as tracked by DeFiLlama. In July, the company claimed that $281,000 of the stolen funds had been recovered with help from security firm SEAL 991, and promised pro-rata payouts.

However, by September, data from CertiK showed only $180,000 had been distributed to 134 wallets. Interviews with eight Dough users revealed they received nothing and were unclear on how payout recipients were selected.

WLFI Backs Folkman and Herro

Despite the controversy surrounding its co-founders, WLFI has continued to back Folkman and Herro. In an email statement, Eric Trump, executive vice president at WLFI, defended the pair and praised their performance:

“We are proud of the entire team. They have overachieved our wildest goals, and our current trajectory is nothing short of incredible.”

WLFI's leadership has also come under scrutiny for its association with Tron founder Justin Sun, who joined the company as an advisor after investing $30 million.

Sun has long been a controversial figure and has previously faced multiple investigations by the SEC.

Shortly after Sun joined WLFI, the SEC unexpectedly dropped all active investigations against him—prompting Democratic legislators to call for a formal investigation into Trump’s crypto ventures.