World Liberty perpetuals' debut implies $40 billion FDV ahead of first unlock on Sept. 1
Quick Take
- World Liberty Financial, the DeFi project closely associated with the Trump family, said it would start unlocking its tokens for trading on Sept. 1.
- 20% of the tokens purchased by early investors in the $0.015 and $0.05 rounds will be unlocked following a “Lockbox” process.
- Perpetual futures trading for the WLFI token launched Saturday on major exchanges, currently trading around $0.42, a significant increase over the prices paid by early investors.
- At that price, the Trump family’s stake in the project would be worth over $9 billion.
World Liberty Financial has detailed its first plans to release tradable tokens to early investors on September 1, marking a significant step for the DeFi project backed by President Donald Trump and his family.
The project plans to unlock 20% of tokens purchased by early supporters in two funding rounds, priced at $0.015 and $0.05 per token. The remaining 80% will be unlocked subject to a subsequent governance vote. The unlocked tokens represent about 5% of the total supply. Tokens allocated to founders, team members, and advisors will remain locked, according to World Liberty's announcement.
Investors will be able to activate an onchain "Lockbox," which will verify compliance, starting on Monday, Aug. 25. "The vast majority are approved to connect and activate immediately," the project said. "Only a limited number that don’t meet compliance requirements are restricted from using the Lockbox."
WLFI holders unanimously voted in July to make the Ethereum-based token tradable, as World Liberty continues to push adoption of its USD1 stablecoin, teasing a loyalty program for users and pursuing a Coinbase listing.
Perps debut over $0.40
On Saturday, the first official pre-market perpetual futures trading contracts for WLFI were listed on exchanges Binance, Bybit, and OKX. On the exchanges, the price hovered between $0.40 and $0.42 on Saturday morning shortly after launch, implying a fully diluted valuation of over $40 billion for the project, given its 100 billion WLFI token supply.
If that price is matched by spot markets once the tokens become unlocked, the Trump family's stake of 22.5 billion tokens, held by the holding company DT Marks DEFI LLC, would be worth over $9 billion, though the tokens won't be immediately unlocked. Trump's personal stake at the end of last year, according to a financial disclosure, was 15.75 billion tokens, which would be worth over $6 billion, doubling Trump's current estimated net worth reported by Forbes.
Trump has been criticized by political opponents for his stake in the project, with some Democrats calling it a potential avenue for corruption. Conflict-of-interest guardrails pushed by Democrats largely failed to make it into the text of the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin-focused legislation that was signed into law by Trump in July.
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