Crypto Reporter
Shalini Nagarajan
Crypto Reporter
Shalini Nagarajan
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World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the Trump family-backed crypto project, is dealing with its first security scare after warning that a subset of user wallets suffered phishing-related compromises around the time of its token launch.
In an X post on Thursday, the WLFI team said some wallets were breached before the platform went live, either through phishing attacks or exposed seed phrases.
It said that the incident did not stem from flaws in WLFI’s own platform or smart contracts, and blamed third-party security lapses that allowed attackers to take control of private wallets.
The project said it responded by freezing affected wallets in September and verifying ownership.
WLFI Rolls Out KYC Checks And New Wallet Process To Secure User Funds
Users who reported compromise were asked to complete fresh know-your-customer (KYC) checks and submit new wallet addresses, so funds could be moved to safer accounts.
In parallel, engineers built and tested new smart contract logic to handle bulk reallocations. The team said reallocations will now begin for users who opened support tickets and passed the required verification steps, while wallets linked to users who have not yet engaged will remain frozen. Those users can still start the process through the help centre.
WLFI framed the slow rollout as deliberate, saying it chose to prioritise the safety of funds over speed, even though the root cause lay outside its own systems. The message aimed to reassure holders who saw wallets locked for weeks while the team designed and tested the migration process.
WLFI Trading Exploded On Binance With Nearly $1B Volume In First Hour
The security issue arrives only weeks after WLFI’s high-profile debut. World Liberty Financial launched its WLFI token on Sept. 1, following teasers earlier in 2024. Trading began on decentralized venues with sharp swings, including a drop of more than 15% on launch day.
Momentum then shifted to major exchanges. Trading volumes surged on Binance and elsewhere, with about $1b worth of tokens changing hands in the first hour, according to CoinMarketCap. Prices moved between $0.24 and $0.30, roughly in line with futures pricing ahead of the listing.
At the top of that range, the Trump family’s stake, reported as 22.5b tokens out of a 100b supply, carried a paper value of more than $6b, making WLFI its single largest asset, the Wall Street Journal reported. The run-up gave the project instant visibility across both political and crypto circles.
WLFI Stake Drops To $3.15B As Token Trades Well Below Launch Levels
Market conditions have since cooled. As of Nov. 20, the family’s WLFI holdings are worth about $3.15b on paper, based on a token price of $0.13 and the same 22.5b token stake.
These are locked governance tokens that confer voting rights and a share of revenue from presales, estimated at $400m to $500m realized so far, rather than full economic claims on the business.
Phishing links, fake support channels and poor key storage remain the weakest points in consumer-facing crypto, even on projects with high visibility and substantial resources.
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