For a fleeting moment, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto project with a direct line to the Trump family, looked like a golden ticket. Presale buyers saw their money multiply 20 times over, at least on paper.
Anyone who bought at the top got scorched though, and watched 60% of their investment vanish. This wasn’t just another crypto launch; it was a masterclass in how hype, politics, and greed can blow up a market.
Why did it skyrocket?
WLFI’s explosion started on 01 September 2025, the day it hit big-name exchanges. Suddenly, anyone on Binance, OKX, or Bybit could buy in, and a flood of money poured into a coin with the Trump family’s name stamped on it as co-founders. This political connection, supercharged by a massive $550 million raised before it even went public, set the stage for chaos.
From fractions of a cent, the price tore past $0.46, briefly giving the project a paper valuation north of $30 billion. The market was gripped by a classic fear of missing out, with a staggering $4.46 billion traded in just the first 24 hours as people scrambled for a piece of the action.
And then, the inevitable collapse…
The high didn’t last. The altcoin’s price caved, cratering to around $0.179. Why? For starters, the people who got in early wanted their money. The rules let them sell 20% of their stash at launch, and with profits as high as 2,000%, who could blame them for cashing out?
Blockchain watchers saw the big moves coming. Giant “whale” wallets were seen shifting huge amounts of WLFI to exchanges right after launch – A dead giveaway that a massive sell-off was imminent. One transaction alone saw three early birds move 160 million tokens, worth $51.2 million at the time, to a Binance wallet.
Source: Lookonchain/X
Digging deeper revealed a shaky foundation. A tiny group of wallets holds almost all the WLFI tokens, giving them terrifying power to swing the price however they want. It’s a setup that screams market manipulation.
The team tried to stop the bleeding by “burning” 47 million tokens. However, it was a drop in the ocean, less than 0.2% of the supply, and did nothing to slow the panic selling.
Source: Etherscan
What are traders watching now?
After all that chaos, traders are still glued to a few key price points.
The floor seems to be somewhere between $0.17 and $0.18—the lowest it’s ever been. If it breaks and stays below that, expect more pain.
To get bulls interested again, WLFI needs to climb back above the $0.23 to $0.25 range. That’s where the price stalled before, so taking it back would be a first step toward recovery.
A team with a troubled past
The project’s credibility is also under fire, thanks to the people running the show. While the Trump and Witkoff names lend political and real estate clout, the co-founders, Zak Folkman and Chase Herro, have a history.
They were the duo behind Dough Finance, a DeFi project that went up in smoke after a $2.5 million hack in 2024. People who lost their money back then say the pair simply jumped ship to a new project without making things right.
With 100 billion tokens in existence and insiders holding a huge chunk, nobody is sure if WLFI is a real long-term venture or just a cash grab. Right now, it’s a gambler’s paradise, a coin driven by headlines and the whims of its biggest holders.