Trump-backed World Liberty Financial opens whitelist

• Donald Trump-backed World Liberty Financial has confirmed the WLFI symbol and invited accredited investors to join its whitelist.
• The whitelist is a list of approved participants who will have access to the DeFi project listings or future offerings.
• With a month to go before the US presidential election in November, Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency is getting a lot of media coverage.

Donald Trump, the former US president and again presidential candidate for the November elections, is back in the news with his cryptocurrency World Liberty Financial. The DeFi project is backed by the Trump family and is built on the Ethereum blockchain.

Critics in the crypto ecosystem say that the project is similar to the DeFi lending protocol Aave, and that the ambassadors and associated directors have previously been associated with crypto projects.

World Liberty Financial has made an official announcement to inform users of the open whitelist for US and foreign accredited investors. An accredited investor is one who typically makes at least $200,000 per year in revenue and has a liquid net worth of at least $1 million. This means that only wealthy people can currently whitelist.

While the project uses the term “everyday American” to describe users who can access the platform, the criteria limits the list to millionaire investors.

World Liberty Financial opens the door to accredited wealthy investors

A whitelist helps users gain early access to a project’s offerings. Donald Trump-backed World Liberty Financial made the announcement via an official tweet on X:

A whitelist provides access to project features and offerings for approved participants. The ad says:

While these whitelists are currently open to accredited US investors and all non-US people, we’re not turning our backs on ordinary Americans. Our mission is to bring financial freedom to everyone, regardless of background or bank balance.

Officials behind World Liberty Financial criticize what they call outdated regulations in the US and say they want all Americans to be able to use the platform in the future.

According to a Coindesk report, World Liberty Financial appears to be a fork of the recently hacked project Dough Finance. Both projects are based on the Aave protocol for borrowing and lending.

The team includes key members from Dough Finance, Zachary Folkman, Chase ‘Hero’ Herro, Octavian Lojnita, and another executive known by the alias “0xboga”. The Coindesk report cites screenshots obtained from the since-deleted code for the project that show striking similarities to Dough Finance.

The project recently confirmed its WLFI token in a conversation with Spaces on X. The project’s governance token will be non-transferable and non-yielding, so these factors make it exempt from SEC securities laws.

By limiting access to accredited investors, the project qualifies for SEC exemption, and traders await further information on where the token will be listed, how to buy it, and what percentage of the total token offering will be sold to the public or investors.