In a nearly unanimous governance decision, World Liberty Financial, the decentralised finance (DeFi) protocol associated with the Trump family, priced “direct access” to team members at $5 million.
A proposal that introduces a three-tier staking scheme for its WLFI governance token was approved by token holders of the company supported by Eric and Barron Trump on Friday.
A 180-day lock-up is necessary for base-tier voters. The Node tier allows stablecoins to be converted to WLFI’s USD1 at 1:1 parity through authorised market makers, but it requires staking 10 million WLFI, or about $1 million. In exchange for 50 million WLFI, or around $5 million, the Super Node tier offers “guaranteed direct access to the WLFI team for partnership discussions”.
Out of 1,800 votes, 99.12% of them were in favour. Ten wallets accounted for more than 76% of the voting tokens.
David Wachsman, a spokesman for WLFI, told Reuters on Sunday that the “direct access” refers to the business development team and executives, not specific founders, and doesn’t guarantee a partnership.
However, co-founders Eric Trump, Barron Trump, and Zach and Alex, the sons of Steven Witkoff, are listed on the company’s own Gold Paper as members of the group “supporting the WLFI commitment”.
Redirecting value from market makers to long-term players is the proposal’s declared goal.
According to WLFI, market makers made millions in arbitrage at about 15 basis points every cycle during its USD1 stablecoin expansion, while WLFI paid millions more in redemption subsidies. Large stakers receive such economics instead thanks to the node and supernode structure.
The concept transcends governance mechanics at the Super Node tier. According to the plan, WLFI now receives “more partnership enquiries than it can productively engage with”.
The requirement to stake five million dollars “serves as a filter to prioritise projects and platforms that are actively supporting and participating in the WLFI ecosystem, rather than those seeking partnership on a purely opportunistic basis”.
In order to communicate with the team, projects must now purchase WLFI tokens and lock them for a period of six months. Before any partnership talks ever start, this develops a captive audience of significant holders who are financially involved in the success of the protocol; lowers the circulating supply; and puts buying pressure on the token.
In the meanwhile, WLFI is investigating the tokenisation of real estate and oil and gas assets, pursuing a national trust bank licence through the OCC, and thinking about establishing a publicly traded corporation to hold WLFI tokens.
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