A new report claims that President Trump and his immediate family receive most of WLFI’s revenues. The Trumps are entitled to 75% of token sale revenues, about $400 million, and 60% of other incomes.
If these numbers are even partially accurate, they raise significant concerns about potential conflicts of interest. They also raise questions about the broader implications for transparency and accountability regarding Trump’s crypto policies.
Does the Trump Family Receive WLFI Proceeds?
World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a project affiliated with President Trump, has made a lot of waves in the crypto space since the end of last year. After persistent rumors of a Binance partnership, WLFI officially launched a new stablecoin, USD1. There is no clear evidence of Binance’s involvement in this launch. However, a new report from Reuters has disclosed some disturbing details.
Essentially, it claims that it has found evidence of how much of WLFI’s revenues go directly to Trump’s family. Trump will get 75% of revenues from token sales and 60% from subsequent operations. WLFI completed its major token sale, which would, therefore, entitle the Trumps to about $400 million.
Reuters calculates that 5% of proceeds from this token sale would actually fund WLFI’s platform, with the rest going to other co-founders. Further, its buyers are not able to actually resell their tokens, and it’s unclear what governance actions they could influence. There’s not an apparent reason for the average retail trader to actually buy these assets.
If these numbers are true, they could represent a serious conflict of interest and a dire threat to the US economy. First, community leaders like Vitalik Buterin warned of corruption from political meme coins like TRUMP. If Trump gets a cut of WLFI’s token sales, that’s already a huge avenue for misuse.
Additionally, since Trump is making huge changes to US financial regulators, there may not be anyone to investigate WLFI corruption allegations. For example, TRON founder Justin Sun invested $30 million into WLFI, and the SEC settled a fraud case against him months later. The SEC has been settling all its crypto enforcement actions, but this investment still looks relevant.
“You’ve got the guy in charge who is responsible for his own regulation. WLFI tokens would be the perfect vehicle for governments or oligarchs overseas to funnel money to the president,” former regulator Ross Delston claimed.
The biggest danger might not even come from political corruption or fears of centralization in crypto. Trump recently outlined a plan to use stablecoins to promote dollar dominance, and WLFI now has its own stablecoin. It also has around $111 million in unrealized losses due to its crypto investments and claims it will use “other cash equivalents” in USD1’s reserves.
It’s hard to overstate the potential risks involved. Given Trump’s financial stake in WLFI, there’s a clear incentive to promote the firm’s stablecoin as part of his “dollar dominance” agenda. If this leads to widespread investment in USD1 and the peg doesn’t hold, the consequences could ripple across the entire crypto market.
Simply put, this sort of business arrangement is totally unprecedented for a sitting US President. A few Senators are already investigating Trump’s connections with WLFI. However, their lack of political power and defanged federal regulators may hamper their ability to change anything.
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