Odds that GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump will launch a cryptocurrency token before November’s election plunged from 71% to 24% in a single day on decentralized bidding platform Polymarket, after Trump provided little detail about his plans on an X Space on Monday evening. The event was billed as an opportunity for the former president to make major announcements about his family’s DeFi project World Liberty Financial (WLF).
During the stream, WLF head of operations Zachary Folkman said the project would launch a non-transferrable governance token on Ethereum called WLFI, which would be available to purchase by accredited investors at an unspecified date. Folkman said that 63% of WLFI will be sold to the public, while 17% will be dedicated to user rewards and 20% will be distributed to the executive team and its advisors.
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As of presstime, almost $2.8 million had been wagered on the proposition.
On Polymarket, users said that they were betting against the possibility of a new token because it seemed Trump was promoting the project without much knowledge of how it actually worked, deflecting questions about crypto and instead using the interview to repeat other campaign promises. “I’m sure Trump said [to the WLF team] ‘do whatever you want, as long as it’s after the election,” commented user Lawyered.eth, who has bet $3,900 on the position that a token will not launch.
Polymarket users’ complaints mirrored chatter on X, where users complained about the lack of details provided on Monday night and characterized the vague statements as akin to the behavior typically seen in the lead up to the launch of scam tokens and memecoins.
“We’re seeing NY elites try to do a basic DeFi grift but dress it up in the classic ‘We have the best lawyers, we’ve spent the most money, we have so and so on board, etc.’” posted prominent meme account @AutismCapital.
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“After 2.5 hours I still have no idea what the point of this token is,” posted The Bitcoin Podcast host Walker America.
“This seems like a huge distraction from the main mission [of] getting Trump elected,” added Wayne Vaughan, CEO and Co-Founder of data blockchain Tierion.
Early Tuesday morning, the official WLF X account was limiting the ability to comment on its posted recording of the livestream to people the account followed or mentioned. It is unclear when the account began limiting comments on the space, but it appears that it happened around 3 a.m. ET after a number of critical comments had been posted.
There are positive comments on X, though they are a minority. These posts mostly focus on emphatic support for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. “Imagine what @worldlibertyfi will do with loyal supporters like myself !!! #MAGA,” said one characteristic post from user @Blake_Berryhill.
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Corey Caplan, the project’s first announced advisor, also recounted it positively. “One win for DeFi and another step forward for the world!” Kaplan proclaimed. No members of the Trump family have commented on the X space since its stream.
A fake token under the same ticker symbol as the DeFi Project’s future governance token, WLFI, was listed on Solana yesterday, accruing $315,552 in trading volume, according to CoinMarketCap. The DeFi project’s real governance token will be listed on Ethereum, not Solana, and has not yet been launched, Folkman said in the X Space.
