Trump-backed World Liberty Financial claims over 100,000 whitelist signups, adds Paxos co-founder Rich Teo ahead of public token sale

The team behind World Liberty Financial held a live stream via X Spaces Monday morning to discuss the DeFi protocol ahead of its token launch sale to the public on Tuesday.

"This was all inspired by the ideals and the vision of Donald J. Trump," said Zak Folkman, one of the project's cofounders, along with Chase Herro, Steve and Zach Witkoff.

Folkman said WLFI will be an ERC20 token, and the sale will take place on the WLF website for those who've joined the whitelist. Well over 100,000 people have signed up for the whitelist since it went live on Sept. 30, he said, and a "gold paper" will also be released Tuesday.

In terms of distribution, 63% of WLFI tokens will be sold to the public beginning Tuesday, Oct. 15. The remaining 17% will go towards user rewards and 20% to team compensation. WLFI will be available to accredited investors within the U.S., qualified investors in the UK and investors outside those countries.

The "initial sale" of WLFI will look to raise $300 million and sell 20% of the token supply at a $1.5 billion fully diluted valuation, according to a roadmap seen by The Block . The first phase of World Liberty Financial is to launch a version of DeFi lending platform Aave on the Ethereum Layer 2 network Scroll to let users lend and borrow tokens, starting with bitcoin, ether and stablecoins.

"I think [DeFi is] going to take a decade at least for mainstream adoption…because it needs maturity, and hopefully, from Aave’s side, the goal is to make sure it’s the best available technology that everybody can use," said Stani Kulechov, the founder and CEO of Aave, during the stream.

The second phase is to integrate with exchanges and let users on-ramp and off-ramp with onchain attestations of know-your-customer (KYC) protocols. The final phase is to fractionalize real-world assets and obtain regulatory licenses for doing so.

During the stream, it was announced that Paxos co-founder Rich Teo had joined the World Liberty team as its stablecoin and payments lead. It was not made clear if he has left his role with Paxos.

'Programmable trust to the public masses'

The project was first  teased on Aug. 7 by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. "Decentralized finance is the future, don’t get left behind," they said then.

On Monday, Donald Trump, Jr. expressed his support for DeFi by criticizing the U.S. banking system, calling it "a big Ponzi scheme." Reflecting on recent banking challenges, Trump Jr. emphasized the need for reform and a more inclusive financial system.

"You can make it cheaper for everybody to borrow," he said, noting that traditional banking can be unreliable.

Sandy, a core contributor to Scroll, said on the stream that she got involved with WLF a few weeks ago and that the people are in it for the right reasons. "Bringing programmable trust to the public masses... Making compound interest more interpretable to the average Joe," she said.

Trump Jr. praised the innovators behind World Liberty Financial, stating that many in the space "would run circles around the average banker from Goldman Sachs." He said WLF could revolutionize the banking sector but stressed the need for regulatory clarity.

Trump Jr. urged the crypto community to engage at the voting booth next month, stating, "There’s a no-brainer about who’s going to be the actual proponent of what’s going on."

While the project has its supporters, others have criticized it as another political game for those involved.

"Everything this man touches is a grift, and his newfound policy stance is no different," crypto-friendly Rep. Wiley Nickel of (D-N.C.) told The Block last month. "For those of us who have worked to advance crypto innovations through real bipartisan action, Trump’s involvement does nothing but harm serious efforts to build a secure and regulated future for digital assets.”