Trump-Backed World Liberty Ethereum Token Debut: Here’s How It Played Out

The President Trump-backed DeFi project World Liberty Financial unlocked its Ethereum token for trading today, debuting as already one of the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

Just over two hours after the token became tradable, CoinGecko placed WLFI as the 30th largest cryptocurrency at an $7.6 billion market cap and $26.7 billion fully diluted valuation. The numbers on CoinMarketCap are slightly different, with the index currently placing WLFI as the 24th largest while having a $6.48 billion market cap and a $26.28 billion fully diluted valuation.

The WLFI token is currently trading for around $0.265, already marking a significant return for early whitelisted buyers of the token who initially purchased the coin at a price of $0.015 per token. That’s a gain of more than 1,700%.

Nevertheless, over $8.51 million worth of long positions on WLFI have been liquidated so far today, according to CoinGlass, as well as $3.85 million worth of shorts—totalling $12.36 million in liquidations over its slightly over four-hour lifespan. To put that in perspective, $6.77 million in leveraged Bitcoin positions were rekt in the past four hours.

“Big day—World Liberty Financial just launched the WLFI token,” Donald Trump Jr., World Liberty Financial co-founder, said on X. “This isn’t some meme coin, it’s the governance backbone of a real ecosystem changing how money moves. Freedom + finance + America FIRST. Home Team.”

The debut follows a July vote in which WLFI governance token holders decided to allow for the token to become transferable and tradable. The token was originally sold as a non-transferable governance token and raised $550 million via two sets of sales, finalizing in March. Following the sale, there was a “strong demand” from early adopters to make the token tradeable, according to World Liberty Financial.

WLFI began trading on several major centralized exchanges—including Gate, Bybit, and Binance—on Monday, which happens to be Labor Day for those Americans who celebrate it.

On Myriad, a prediction market developed by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, predictors are now debating how many green hourly candles the token will have within its first 69 hours of life. WLFI’s first candle was green and followed by a red candle. It appears that Myriad users currently believe a downward trend is likely, placing odds at 66% that there will be more red than green.

“Our team has always believed in American strength and leadership,” World Liberty Financial co-founder Eric Trump wrote on X. “We’re setting a new standard for financial freedom; built on trust, speed, and U.S. values. This is a huge moment for the future of money!”

World Liberty Financial is a decentralized finance project—the sort that allows for the non-custodial trading of crypto assets without third-party intermediaries. The project brands itself as a crypto lending and borrowing service, but has yet to launch. 

The Trump-backed project has, however, already rolled out its dollar-pegged stablecoin USD1, which is the sixth largest stablecoin by market cap, according to CoinGecko. It was co-founded by nine individuals, according to its site, including President Trump, his three sons, and U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Steven Witkoff. 

President Trump disclosed in July that he has pocketed a handsome $57.3 million from the crypto venture. Combined with his meme coin dealings, Trump’s crypto ventures have led to uproar within U.S. politics as some lawmakers have loudly criticized the apparent conflicts of interest.