The Trump Organization is slowly pulling away from the decentralized finance (DeFi) project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) as it cuts its stake to just 40% in less than a year of launching, and it is now believed to be quietly selling off its stake to third parties.
Per Forbes, Trump’s family-linked DT Marks DEFI LLC quietly reduced its stake in WLFI from 75% to “approximately” 60% in January 2025, shortly after the President’s inauguration.
This followed the WLFI token sale, which went live in October 2024 with an initial target of $300 million.
The extended WLFI token sale, which raised an additional $250 million for the project, concluded in March with $550 million raised. The project also raised additional capital across three private rounds.
One notable early investment came from TRON (TRX) founder Justin Sun, who reportedly purchased 2 billion tokens for $30 million. Sun followed this up on January 20, 2025, with an additional $45 million investment.
It’s unclear if Sun’s second investment in WLFI was for tokens or to acquire a stake in the firm. However, it does coincide with reports that the WLFI team was planning to sell off a portion to a third party in January.
However, according to WLFI’s website , the Trump family firm’s equity interests in WLFI now stand at 40%, which Forbes notes has happened in the past two weeks.
The Trump-backed DeFi project also launched a U.S dollar-pegged stablecoin, USD1, which has since garnered a market cap of $2.19 billion.
Testing its tech and giving WLFI token sale participants an early kickback, WLFI airdropped 47 USD1 to roughly 86,000 backers, totaling approximately $4,042,000.
However, the USD1 token currently carries a sturdy $2.19 billion market cap, ranking it fifth against competing stablecoins.
Interestingly, USD1’s market cap is currently propped up thanks to an Abu Dhabi firm’s decision to leverage $2 billion worth of USD1 to finalize its investment into Binance.
With the GENIUS Act currently making its way through Congress, stablecoins are set to become a mainstay in the U.S. digital economy.
Naturally, this has raised eyebrows over conflict of interest, which may also be a cause for the Trump family to distance themselves from WLFI and USD1.