Your support helps us tell the story
Most polls show this election remains close. In a race this close, reporters are needed on the ground to talk to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to this story.
The Independent is trusted every month by 27 million Americans from across the political spectrum. Unlike many other quality news organizations, we don't lock you away from our reporting or analysis with a paywall. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Please help us continue to bring these important stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
The new cryptocurrency backed by Donald Trump sold only 3% of its allocated tokens after its launch on Tuesday.
The Republican presidential candidate, who claims to be the first “crypto president,” publicly endorsed the World Liberty Financial project on X (formerly Twitter) shortly after the WLFI token was launched.
Despite the support, as of this writing, 24 hours after the project was released to the public, only $11 million of its $300 million sales goal has been met. This website also crashed shortly after publication, but has since recovered.
According to WLFI advisor Sandy Penn, the site received more than 72 million unique visitors in the first hour, and about 2,900 investors bought tokens, less than 0.01 percent of visitors. It is said that there was not.
WLFI tokens are currently non-transferable and offer holders the opportunity to vote on governance issues for the World Liberty Financial platform, including promotional partnerships and technical changes.
Only 63 percent of the total tokens are available to the public, with 17 percent set aside as user rewards and 20 percent as “team rewards” for members of the Trump family and others associated with the project.
Trump has taken on the role of “chief cryptocurrency advocate” at World Liberty Financial, and his son Barron has been named the project's “DeFi visionary.” His two other sons, Eric and Donald Jr., are listed as “web3 ambassadors.”
Inspired by the original Bitcoin white paper, World Liberty Financial published a “gold paper” on Tuesday outlining the project.
“World Liberty Financial, inspired by the vision of Donald J. Trump, aims to be more than just a decentralized financial platform. “Central Bank Digital Currency” is a movement that will help secure the future of the US dollar in the world, the paper claimed.
“With $WLFI, you can become a participant, a voter, and a part of the future of decentralized finance.”