The Trump familys wealth is now dominated by cryptocurrency after World Liberty Financial (WLF) launched trading of its WLFI token on Monday.
The event involved the company unlocking 24.6 billion tokens to create the initial circulating supply, which briefly pushed WLFIs price to $0.40 before it fell to about $0.21.
The launch opened WLFI to the public for the first time, allowing the token to be bought and sold on exchanges. According to a Wall Street Journal report, WLFI saw heavy trading in its opening hours, with roughly $1 billion worth of tokens exchanged. On Binance, the price ranged between $0.24 and $0.30. At the higher price, Mondays unlocking gave the Trump familys stake a valuation of over $6 billion.
Crypto has now become the largest part of the First Familys assets. Beyond WLFI, entities linked to them control around 80% of TRUMP, a meme coin worth several billion dollars. A Trump-owned trust also holds just over half of Trump Media, which runs Truth Social and invests in cryptocurrencies, with that stake valued at about $2.5 billion.
The project has taken several steps to support WLFI. This summer, it acquired a publicly listed firm and raised $750 million in cash to buy the cryptocurrency. That deal stands to bring them about $500 million since they retain up to three-quarters of revenues from token sales.
Some critics have raised concerns that World Liberty could be used to influence the Trump family, noting that its growth has been supported by partners and investors seeking connections with the White House. For instance, after initially missing fundraising targets, the company received a $75 million purchase from Justin Sun, who has been under SEC scrutiny since 2023 but recently secured a pause in the case.
However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt countered this argument, noting that neither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest. The projects chief executive, Zach Witkoff, also described it as a private business that does not participate in politics.
Elsewhere, the crypto project has faced recent security concerns, with some users reporting that WLFI tokens purchased in the private sale were stolen by hackers. One X user, FUGUIHK, described how a friends MetaMask wallet was phished, resulting in all assets being emptied.
According to the post, after transferring small amounts of U and ETH into the compromised wallet, the funds were automatically moved to the attackers account. They noted that attempts to transfer tokens into or out of the WLFI lockbox required gas fees, which were also captured by the hackers.
The founder of blockchain security firm SlowMist has since responded, explaining that the incident involved a classic EIP-7702 phishing hack. The victims private key had been leaked, allowing malicious actors to set up an exploit mechanism tied to the wallet address.
This means that any attempt to move remaining tokens, including WLFI placed in the lockbox contract, would trigger automatic transfers to the attackers. In a follow-up post, they added that these incidents are part of a wider pattern of scams targeting the tokens holders.