Former President Donald Trump announced his new crypto platform World Liberty Financial (WLFI) on Monday, with limited signups open to accredited investors in the United States as well as other investors who meet the eligibility criteria in the rest of the world.
But despite the passion that crypto projects and Trump often inspire in their online boosters, Trump’s latest branding foray is raising eyebrows even among the diehards.
“This will be the biggest scam in all of defi” posted a user with a long string of memecoins in their bio.
"I’m going to go out on a limb here and say - this will be a net negative to crypto," wrote another.
DeFi” is “decentralized finance,” which in crypto refers to blockchain platforms where people can cut out the middlemen of bankers, brokerages, and exchanges and trade crypto directly with each other.
WLFI purports to be a “cutting-edge” platform in the space. In a tweet promoting the launch, Trump wrote that its goal is to “help make America the crypto capital of the world!”
Other posters lamented the fact that Trump was probably going to use the platform to launch a new coin instead of leaning into the current relative popularity of Bitcoin.
“Study Bitcoin. Stop promoting weird money-grab scams. Do better. Be better,” wrote @gaborgurbacs.
“Don’t shitcoin, it’s bad for you,” wrote one.
“Bitcoiners, this still yer guy?” asked another, referring to Trump's recent appearance at a Bitcoin conference.
Many crypto posters, who are often attracted to the space because of the pseudonymity it allows, as well as a lack of regulation, are balking at the comparatively stringent steps to be eligible for the platform’s whitelist.
“So to continue after verifying your identity, there is an Accredited Investor Verification Method and to pass as an individual, you have to make more than $100k a year,” posted @FreakFls. “I thought this was for everyone.”
“Was excited for this, but can’t even be a part of it as an American,” posted @Nate_Apes.
WLFI explained in a string of posts announcing its launch that “outdated policies and regulations in the US” are responsible for limiting the platform to accredited U.S. investors and “non-US persons.”
“We’re fighting for changes so all Americans can access World Liberty Financial and join the financial revolution,” it added. WLFI didn’t immediately respond to questions asking what policies or regulations blocked non-accredited American investors from joining.
“If a platform requires you to KYC, it is not DeFi,” criticized another backer.
While Trump once warned that crypto was “potentially a disaster waiting to happen,” he’s since pivoted and embraced the technology whole-heartedly. One reason for that might be his youngest son Barron’s interest in cryptocurrency.
In a Twitter Space earlier in September where Trump discussed launching a crypto platform, he effused about Barron’s knowledge about crypto, boasting that he “knows this stuff inside and out.”
Outside of lowbie meme-coin boosting accounts, bigger players in the nexus between cryptocurrency and politics have also raised doubts about the wisdom of Trump getting involved in the space.
“Is there something that we, as crypto twitter, can collectively do to stop the launch of world liberty coin?” crypto influencer Nic Carter posted at the beginning of September. “I think it genuinely damages trump's electoral prospects, especially if it gets hacked (it'll be the juiciest DeFi target ever and it's forked from a protocol that itself was hacked).”
“It's also an obvious target for the SEC,” Carter explained. “At best it's an unnecessary distraction, at worst it's a huge embarrassment and source of (additional) legal trouble. So are we signing a petition or what?”
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