World Liberty Financial (WLF), a much-awaited DeFi protocol supported by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, officially launched its public token sale on Tuesday morning. The protocol attracted a lot of consideration while launching this public token sale. WLF hopes to collect $300 million after its 20% supply of the total token on sale by fetching $1.5 billion in total. By the close of the first day, however, World Liberty Financial was only able to raise $9 million from around 610 million tokens sold, a far cry from its target for fundraising.
The token sale kicked off between 8-9 a.m. ET; despite initial technical issues like slowdowns on the website and short-period downtimes, the project was still able to raise $5 million in the first hour alone. At $0.015 per token, sales reached $9.15 million by 7:25 p.m. ET. While still slower out of the gates than lofty ambitions, co-founder Zak Folkman was optimistic earlier this week. He noted that the whitelist, which opened on September 30, had more than 100,000 sign-ups.
Trump’s Role and the Project’s Political Ties
World Liberty Financial co-founders Steve and Zach Witkoff, Folkman, and Chase Herro all line up behind Trump, who has morphed into “chief crypto advocate” for the project. Through a note on X (formerly Twitter), Trump declared, “Crypto is the future. Let’s embrace this incredible technology and lead the world in digital economy.” His sons, Donald Jr., Eric, and Barron, are also acting as web3 ambassadors for the project, which further entwines the Trump brand with the future of digital assets.
World Liberty Financial positions itself under the banner of a decentralized protocol which seeks to revolutionize the financial landscape through the use of blockchain technology. Governance World Liberty Financial tokens will thus represent the power to vote on, amongst other platform decisions, how the platform should continue to develop. However, these governance World Liberty Financial tokens are reserved and cannot be transferred during the first year, thus redefining the sum for trading or short-term speculators. Also, the platform has been marketed as one through which users can participate in the very fast-emerging DeFi ecosystem while aligning themselves with a political figure like Trump, who has often attracted strong opinions both for and against his involvement in different sectors.
Early Reactions: Supporters and Critics Weigh In
Early reaction to the World Liberty Financial has been in parts mixed. On one hand, proponents see the project as the future necessity of adopting decentralized finance, while on the other side, some argue it would be dangerous to bundle a DeFi protocol with such a very politicized figure as Trump. Analysts and crypto experts remain raising the question of whether this project will be sustained, given the technical problems associated with the launch of this token sale.
Issues related to the program and its connection to Donald Trump have spawned wider debates among cryptocurrency enthusiasts on the potential risks and rewards of mainstream politicians entering the crypto space. To some, it was a form of forewarning that the government eventually was going to take notice and pay attention to this industry, while to others, it was just a marketing gimmick that would go on to undermine the decentralized ethos dear to most cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Bitcoin Surge and Trump’s Election Odds
Another interesting thing is that it is also accompanied by the surge in price for Bitcoins. Already, it is known that in October, the price of Bitcoins rose by about 15%. At least partly, according to analysts at Bernstein, the movement should be attributed to its growing chances of winning the 2024 U.S. presidential election by Trump. Bernstein’s analysts wrote to clients earlier in the day, “We believe recent strength in bitcoin is being driven by the return of bitcoin’s correlation to Trump’s election odds.”.
While both Trump and his opponent, Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, have professed some form of support for digital assets, the bitcoin market seems to be of the opinion that Trump’s preference stands a better chance of coming to fruition. This being a relatively new affair, the World Liberty Financial token sale will quite go a long way until it reaches its fundraising goal of $300 million, as there are 19.4 billion World Liberty Financial tokens that remain available for purchase.
As the protocol gains so much attention in DeFi, it is still unsure if it can live up to all the hype or if it succumbs somehow due to some association with politics and technical issues brought about in its early stages. Meanwhile, Trump and his team are positive, as the former president joins the new era of digital finance. The success of this project could be a partial marker or bellwether of how things may shape up with respect to crypto regulation and adoption in the U.S., especially in the dimensions of politics and policy leading up to the 2024 presidential election.
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