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What Is World Liberty Financial? The Trump Family DeFi Project Explained – Decrypt

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What Is World Liberty Financial? The Trump Family DeFi Project Explained – Decrypt

In brief

  • World Liberty Financial is an Ethereum-based DeFi project co-founded by U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons.
  • The platform, which aims to “keep the dollar digital” and provide “loans for institutions and everyday users,” has launched a stablecoin called USD1.
  • The Trump family’s involvement in World Liberty Financial and other crypto projects has sparked criticisms from Democratic lawmakers over potential conflict of interest and corruption.

U.S. President Donald Trump has a long list of crypto ventures, profiting to the tune of some $1 billion as of October 2025. Of them, a DeFi project dubbed World Liberty Financial might be the biggest.

The platform, which President Trump co-founded, according to its website, along with his three sons, wants to make finance “reliable, open, and made for how the world works today.”

World Liberty Financial was announced by President Trump’s son Eric in August 2024. It is led by DeFi builders Chase Herro and Zak Folkman, along with other members of the Trump family and Zach Witkoff—son of longtime Trump ally Steve Witkoff.

Details on how the project works are still somewhat scant. Let’s take a look at what we know so far.

An Ethereum-based DeFi project

Built using the Aave protocol, World Liberty Financial’s platform hasn’t been released as of October 2025, but the project says it plans to “keep the dollar digital” and provide “loans for institutions and everyday users.”

DeFi—short for decentralized finance—is the sphere of the crypto industry that wants to replace traditional banking. DeFi projects, financial platforms that operate without third-party intermediaries, are usually apps built using Ethereum, the blockchain behind the second biggest cryptocurrency, ETH.

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World Liberty Financial also runs on Ethereum.

It’s worth noting that while there are plenty of DeFi apps, the space is still a highly experimental part of the crypto industry and has been plagued by hacks and scams.

Those in the DeFi space typically say they want to streamline a slow and expensive legacy banking system, and World Liberty Financial so far has sold itself as the quintessential DeFi project: A borrowing and lending platform that will “unlock financial access for all, by replacing the limits of traditional banking with open, on-chain infrastructure, creating a fairer system—where opportunity isn’t defined by location, status, or permission.”

What can you do with World Liberty Financial?

While you can’t yet take loans out using the platform, you can buy its native token, WLFI, which has a market cap of $3.56 billion as of October 2025, making it the 43rd biggest cryptocurrency in existence, per CoinGecko data. WLFI is available on top exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, and OKX.

The project also has its own stablecoin, USD1, running on Ethereum and BNB Chain, which Decrypt first revealed in October 2024. The stablecoin is also available on major American exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken.

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Stablecoins are digital tokens pegged to the value of fiat currencies—in USD1’s case, the U.S. dollar. The assets are a key part of the DeFi economy (and the wider crypto economy) because traders use them to swiftly enter and exit digital asset transactions. Instead of using dollars on traditional banking rails, digital tokens accelerate the crypto trading process.

The Trump family’s involvement

President Trump is listed as “co-founder emeritus” on the World Liberty Financial website, meaning he is no longer involved in the project since taking office in January. His close friend and the White House’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is also listed as a “co-founder emeritus.”

Still, the Trump and Witkoff families have likely made a lot of money from the project: Steve Witkoff’s son, Zach, and the president’s three sons, Eric, Donald Jr., and Barron are all still actively involved in World Liberty Financial.

WLFI’s market cap is more than two and half times bigger than the meme coin President Trump launched ahead of his inauguration, Official Trump (TRUMP). The Trump family owns a significant portion of the WLFI supply; their net worth grew by over $6 billion when the tokens started trading in September.

Conflict of interest concerns

The Trump family’s involvement in WLFI has proved contentious. Democratic lawmakers have frequently criticized the project—and the president’s other crypto ventures. In May 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren took aim at a $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund MGX into leading crypto exchange Binance, which used the USD1 token, calling it “shady.”

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Prominent House Democrats have also asked the Treasury to provide access to all suspicious activity reports, or SARs, on Trump’s digital asset projects—including World Liberty Financial.

Trump has repeatedly brushed aside concerns over his family’s involvement with crypto ventures including World Liberty Financial, claiming he “hasn’t looked” at the profits.

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Finance

Low-income Chinese girl aces gaokao, inspires live-streamers offering help

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Low-income Chinese girl aces gaokao, inspires live-streamers offering help

A girl from a disadvantaged rural family in central China topped this year’s gaokao, attracting numerous live-streamers eager to finance her education, which she declined.

The home of 18-year-old secondary school graduate Han Yaping in a Henan province village was recently bustling with live-streamers.

This attention came after Han achieved an impressive score of 699 out of 750 in the gaokao, China’s national college entrance exam.

She has received offers from China’s two leading universities, Tsinghua University and Peking University.

Han’s accomplishment is particularly remarkable given her family’s impoverished circumstances.

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Her mother suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine, preventing her from working. Her father, who earns a living through farming and odd jobs, serves as the family’s sole provider. Han also has a younger sister.

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Finance

UK financial regulator publishes landmark AI review

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UK financial regulator publishes landmark AI review

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a landmark review on Monday that proposes recommendations to regulate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the financial decisions made by consumers.

The review, titled the Mills Review, anticipates that both consumers and firms will start delegating “more financial decision-making to AI systems,” including for agreements, initiating transactions, and executing decisions “within agreed parameters.” One of the key findings of the review outlined that while AI can help bridge advice gaps and “support growth,” there remain risks “associated with fraud, cyber security, and consumer harm.” Conducting the review, Sheldon Mills highlighted that “AI can also amplify risks: bias, discrimination, exclusion, opaque decision-making (particularly when multiple AI models interact), misleading or hallucinatory advice and erosion of consumer trust.”

The review stated that presently, one in five adults in the UK are “already open to AI making decisions for them,” particularly when decisions feel “complex or high stakes.” It found that roughly 26 percent of the population “trust general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for financial advice” with little awareness that such platforms provide no “formal routes to recourse” or protections.

Overall, the Mills Review identified four areas that it anticipates will be impacted by AI in the financial sector: “the transformation of firms,” “new consumer journeys,” “a reshaped competition landscape,” and “amplified financial crime and cyber risk.” The FCA projected the shift in how consumers and firms consult AI to take place by 2030.

The Mills Review put forth seven “priority” recommendations to be considered by the FCA Board. It recommended that any transitions to autonomous AI models be monitored and that regulatory frameworks and perimeters be adapted and secured. The review called for the strengthening of “system-wide coordination and oversight,” the scaling up of the FCA’s AI Lab to enable it to support AI models and innovation for agentic finance, and an “AI-enabled agentic supervisory model” to be built and adopted.   Finally, it recommended that a trusted “public-interest AI-enabled financial capability service” be developed.

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The FCA announced, in the press release, that it will launch an AI “good and poor practice publication” in late 2026.

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Finance

Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approves audit contract, new finance director position

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Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approves audit contract, new finance director position

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – The Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approved a one-year audit contract capped at $131,750 plus $225 per hour during a virtual meeting Monday, along with a new finance director job description.

The contract is with Mauldin & Jenkins Certified Public Accountants, an Atlanta-based firm, and covers the 2025-26 fiscal year and the restatement of the 2024-25 fiscal year and ancillary services through FY 2029-2030. The work is set to be completed by Nov. 15.

The board approved the contract in a 5-0 vote.

Audit contract details

Interim Chief Financial Officer Kyna Koch said the cost is already accounted for in the district’s budget.

“And is actually less than we expected given our current situation — we were thrilled with the bid,” Koch said.

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Koch said she believes this is Mauldin & Jenkins’ first school district audit in Kentucky, but that the firm works with school districts of more than 100,000 students throughout the Southeast.

“Quite frankly when I spoke to the folks at KDE they were thrilled because we’re running kind of short of auditors who want to do school district audits — so all around I think this was a win-win for everyone,” Koch said.

New finance director position

The board also approved a new job description for the position of Director of Finance. Acting Superintendent Dr. Bill Bradford said the title will replace two associate director positions.

“Which will not only save the school district money but it’s also going to streamline our work and align internal controls to make room for a more efficient unit,” Bradford said.

Koch said the position will be posted as soon as possible following the board’s approval.

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Closed session

The board went into closed session for more than an hour to discuss pending investigations that could lead to employee discipline. When the board returned, it took no action and adjourned the meeting.

Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.

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