TLDR
- World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a project backed by Donald Trump, completed its token sale, raising between $550-590 million
- Initial fundraising fell short at $11 million against a $300 million target, but demand later surged
- All purchased WLFI tokens remain locked for 12 months and serve only as governance tokens
- The project’s portfolio has already suffered market-related losses of $110 million as of March 10
- Tron founder Justin Sun was credited as a major investor who helped drive the project’s success
World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto project associated with President Donald Trump’s family, has successfully completed its token sale.
The fundraising effort concluded with approximately $550 million raised according to the project’s official website, though some reports place the final figure closer to $590 million.
The public sale of WLFI’s governance token began in October 2024. The project initially set an ambitious target of $300 million. This would be raised by offering 20 billion tokens priced at $0.015 each.
Only whitelisted investors who completed Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) verifications could participate in the sale. This restriction limited the pool of potential buyers to accredited investors.
The initial phase of the token sale fell well short of expectations. It generated only $11 million through the distribution of 766 million tokens. The team responded by lowering their funding goal to $30 million to better match market interest.
The first phase concluded on January 20, with 20% of the total token supply distributed. During this period, Tron founder Justin Sun emerged as one of the largest investors in the project. Sun reportedly invested $30 million in November 2024 and later increased his investment.
Interest in the project surged after the initial phase. The team made an additional 5 billion WLFI tokens available on January 20. These were priced higher at $0.05 per token.
By March 13, approximately 99% of these additional tokens had been sold. This reflected a major increase in demand for the project’s tokens over the course of the sale.
Speaking at Consensus 2025 in Hong Kong, WLFI co-founder Zak Folkman credited Justin Sun with the project’s ultimate success.
“When we were launching this project, it was a very heated time,” Folkman said during the event. “There was a lot of scrutiny on our project due to who was involved.”
Folkman noted that traditional crypto venture capital firms would not invest in the token. “[Sun] saw that regardless of the outcome, this project is a monumental move forward for the entire crypto community,” he added during the Consensus panel.
All purchased WLFI tokens will remain locked for 12 months following the sale. This restriction prevents any immediate trading activity on the tokens.
WLFI serves exclusively as a governance token within the World Liberty Financial Protocol. It grants holders the ability to submit and vote on proposals. The token does not confer ownership, financial returns, or economic benefits.
The project has made it clear that the token is neither a security nor a digital currency. It cannot be used for transactions or services. Its value remains independent of WLFI’s operational success.
The token cannot currently be transferred or publicly sold on exchanges. No date has been set for an exchange listing, leaving investors without a clear timeline for liquidity.
Despite the successful fundraising, the project has already experienced financial setbacks. As of March 10, total losses linked to the Trump-backed initiative had reached $110 million.
The project had allocated $336 million to acquire nine different cryptocurrency assets. Market downturns reduced the portfolio’s value to $226 million. Ethereum (ETH) represented 65% of the holdings and recorded the largest decline.
WLFI purchased ETH at an average price of $3,240 per token. With the price around $1,896 at the time of reporting, the portfolio suffered major devaluation. Other digital assets within the portfolio also incurred losses.
According to data from ICODrops, WLFI’s raise of $550-590 million would place it among the top ten largest token sales of all time. The current record holder is EOS, which raised $4.21 billion.
