Former President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, initiated its token sale on Tuesday. The website faced technical issues shortly thereafter, leading to a crash.
The whitelist for this anticipated but largely unclarified decentralized finance project began on September 30th, targeting accredited investors and non-U.S. individuals. Zach Folkman, co-founder of World Liberty Financial, indicated on Monday that over 100,000 participants had registered to purchase the token WLFI, as reported by CNBC. The website was reported to be back online by the time of publication.
Blockchain data monitored by Etherscan revealed that as of Tuesday afternoon, 5,317 unique wallet addresses held the token. World Liberty Financial reported selling over 532 million tokens out of the 20 billion available for public sale.
An advisor for WLFI, Sandy Peng, informed CoinDesk that the high traffic volume caused the website outages, noting that the site received 72 million unique visits within the first hour of the token’s launch. The advisory team had not anticipated this level of interest.
CoinDesk also reported that the WLFI token will initially be non-transferable and will be used to manage the World Liberty Financial platform. Token holders will have a role in decisions regarding protocol upgrades, technical modifications, promotional partnerships, and security risk oversight. The platform will enable users to engage in cryptocurrency borrowing and lending.
Despite claims by Trump and his associates that World Liberty Financial is intended to assist those without banking access, the purchase of WLFI is restricted to individuals meeting the Securities and Exchange Commission’s criteria for accredited investors. This designation requires an income of at least $200,000 (or $300,000 with a spouse) and/or a net worth of at least $1 million, not including the primary residence.
On Tuesday, World Liberty Financial issued a document referred to as a “gold paper” concerning the token, identifying Trump as the “chief crypto associate.” His sons, Eric, Donald Trump Jr., and Barron, are listed as Web3 Ambassadors.
The paper states that the World Liberty Financial protocol intends to provide users with information and access to third-party decentralized finance applications, including third-party digital wallet services for managing stable coins and other digital assets. It is emphasized in the paper that these tokens are “NOT AVAILABLE FOR U.S. PERSONS” and “HAVE NOT BEEN REGISTERED WITH ANY U.S. OR OTHER AUTHORITY.”
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