The cryptocurrency project World Liberty Financial (WLFI), associated with the Trump family, is once again embroiled in public controversy. A new proposal is igniting intense discussions among investors, which aims to impose staking requirements on unlocked WLFI tokens in exchange for governance voting rights.
According to the proposal, approximately 20% of WLFI token holders, who can currently trade freely, must lock their tokens for at least 180 days to participate in key governance decisions. During the lock-up period, investors can earn an annualized reward of 2% in WLFI tokens, but this interest rate can be unilaterally adjusted by the project team in the future. The uniqueness of this mechanism lies in the fact that the voting topics directly involve the release timing of the unlocked tokens—this means that if investors want to influence the release pace of their locked assets, they must first lock up their liquid tokens that could otherwise be used for cashing out.
This design of “exchanging liquidity for voice” has been viewed as a structural contradiction by multiple investors. WLFI investor Morten Christensen publicly stated he would vote against the proposal, citing the project's long-standing lack of transparency, which has left participants feeling uneasy. He was previously invited to an event hosted by Trump for meme coin investors and has direct experience with such projects.
Since Trump took office for his second term, cryptocurrency projects associated with his family have faced frequent criticism. The previously launched meme coin surged rapidly before the presidential inauguration, yielding substantial profits for early participants, while later entrants suffered significant losses. Additionally, the related stablecoin plan has also prompted congressional investigations into potential conflicts of interest.
Even more concerning is that despite WLFI tokens being on sale for over a year, the project team has yet to release any clear token release schedule. Currently, about 80% of the initial investors' tokens remain locked, lacking a public unlocking pathway, which has raised widespread doubts about the project's credibility.
Renowned token economics expert Lex Sokolin pointed out that advancing governance reforms without a transparent release mechanism is an extremely rare operation that severely violates the fundamental principles of the cryptocurrency industry. The token release schedule is a core basis for investors to assess risk.
Since some tokens began trading, the price of WLFI has dropped by over 50%. Some analysts believe that this staking proposal is actually a means to alleviate selling pressure and stabilize the token price, but the project team denied this in a statement on March 5, claiming it aims to enhance the voice of long-term holders. However, when governance rights are forcibly tied to the release of one's own assets, whether the so-called “long-termism” truly serves ordinary investors remains a significant question.