Former US president Donald Trump and his family have hinted about an upcoming DeFi project named World Liberty Financial. Despite having teased about it for weeks, little information has surfaced about it, making it look mysterious.
However, a Coindesk report revealed some interesting details about the project, raising concerns about possible red flags. According to the project’s white paper and GitHub repository, it draws inspiration from the failed DeFi lending protocol Dough Finance.
CoinDesk got details on the upcoming Trump crypto project and $WLFI token. All three of the former president’s sons are involved.
Some team members worked on Dough Finance, a DeFi platform hacked in July. One founded Date Hotter Girls LLC.https://t.co/f6sjNoovV0
— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk) September 4, 2024
Donald Trump’s World Liberty Finance and its Link to Hacked DeFi Protocol
Amid backing from Trump and his three sons, recent reports have revealed disturbing information about World Liberty Financial.
.@worldlibertyfi pic.twitter.com/mwhVIzPJyq
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2024
Coindesk said it obtained excerpts of the project’s White Paper, which describes a lending and borrowing service similar to Dough Finance. Notably, Dough Finance lost $2 million to a flash loan hack in July due to a vulnerability in its code.
The white paper also revealed that four of World Liberty Financial’s team members were identified as Dough Finance developers.
But that’s not the only red flag reportedly identified. The masterminds behind World Liberty Financial include Trump’s sons Eric, Donald Jr., and Barron and Zachary Folkman, a pickup artist who co-founded Date Hotter Girls LLC.
Moreover, 18-year-old Barron Trump is identified as World Liberty Financial’s DeFi visionary. Barron has reportedly faced several criminal charges across four cases and served jailed time for drug-related charges.
Besides Trump’s three sons, World Liberty features another Dough Finance elite personnel named Chase Herro. According to someone familiar with the matter, Herro is identified in the white paper as the head of operations, data, and strategies lead for World Liberty Financial.
Coindesk also revealed Herro’s Telegram bio bore a link to Dough Finance’s Telegram channel, showing his connection to the failed DeFi platform.
Further, the white paper identified Octavian Lojnita, who also worked on Dough Finance, as the project’s smart contract lead. Lastly, Boga, the pseudonymous author in Dough Finance’s source code, is World Liberty Financial’s front-end developer.
Given the DeFi protocol’s hack history, the presence of these individuals in Trump’s new project raises significant concerns about its security. However, there is no evidence that the Dough Finance code vulnerabilities exist in the new project’s code.
Meanwhile, World Liberty Financial’s limited liability corporation is registered to Folkman, who, alongside Herro, is Subify’s co-creator. Subify claims to be a censorship-free competitor of Patreon and OnlyFans, platforms that let users pay content creators.
As mentioned earlier, Folkman founded Date Hotter Girls LLC, and he often teaches how to pick up women on YouTube.
These details raised questions about whether World Liberty Financial might face the same fate as the failed Dough Finance protocol. Some even think it could be a Dough Finance rebrand. However, the parties involved, including Donald Trump’s campaign team, have yet to comment on these revelations.
World Liberty Financial Use Cases
The white paper for World Liberty Financial revealed the project will feature a credit account system built on Aave and Ethereum. This aims to facilitate decentralized lending and borrowing.
The platform will adopt WLFI as its governance token, allowing holders to participate in its decision-making. However, one concern exists: the white papers revealed that the governance token WLFI would be non-transferable, which could make it impossible to trade the tokens.
The white paper also stated that WLFI holders can nominate and vote for new blockchains to integrate into the platform. However, this may not provide enough use cases for the token.
Despite the widespread skepticism about this project, there has been scarce information on Trump’s venture into the DeFi space. The Trumps called it The Defiant Ones in their first announcement in August. So far, they have only teased about its launch on social media.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not constitute financial advice. We encourage readers to conduct their own research and determine their own risk tolerance before making any financial decisions. Cryptocurrency is a highly volatile, high-risk asset class.
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