World Liberty Financial, the decentralized finance platform backed by President Donald Trump’s sons, has seen its governance token WLFI emerge as one of crypto’s weakest performers this week. The token fell more than 23% over the past seven days, hitting a fresh all-time low of $0.059 amid broader market weakness and mounting investor unease over an advancing token unlock and deepening governance disputes.
WLFI Token Plunges 23% as Governance Row Deepens Ahead of Unlock
1 May 2026 - 12:30 CEST
WLFI began trading in September 2025 at roughly $0.31 after an initial sale period that drew hype from its high-profile political connections. The price action since has been one of steady erosion, with recent daily charts showing accelerating downside momentum as selling intensified near the $0.06 level.
Justin Sun escalates legal fight
Billionaire Justin Sun, founder of the Tron blockchain (TRX) and a major early backer who invested around $45mn, has taken his criticism of the project public and to court. Sun alleged that World Liberty Financial used WLFI tokens as collateral to secure a roughly $75mn loan from the decentralized lending protocol Dolomite in early April. The borrowed stablecoins, largely in the project’s own USD1 token, were then cycled into yield strategies.
Dolomite, whose co-founder serves as an adviser to World Liberty Financial, saw its USD1 lending pool utilization spike sharply during the episode, temporarily restricting withdrawals for other users and raising questions about conflicts of interest. Sun accused the platform of deploying a backdoor mechanism to freeze and potentially dilute his holdings, stripping him of voting rights.
The Tron founder filed a federal lawsuit against World Liberty Financial on 22 Apr in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. He claimed the moves amounted to an illegal scheme to seize his tokens and pressure him into further investments. World Liberty Financial’s CEO Zach Witkoff called the allegations "entirely meritless" and a "desperate attempt to deflect attention from Sun’s own misconduct." The company has maintained that it acted to protect users and the platform.
Vesting proposal wins strong support
World Liberty Financial, which positions itself as a bridge between traditional finance and blockchain opportunities, has advanced a governance proposal to place more than 62bn WLFI tokens under structured multi-year vesting. The plan would unlock 62.3bn tokens while requiring founders, team members and partners to burn up to 10% of their allocations – roughly 4.5bn tokens – in exchange for a two-year lock-up followed by three-year linear vesting. Early supporters would face a two-year cliff and two-year vesting with no burn.
Onchain voting data on the project’s Snapshot governance page shows overwhelming approval, with 99.9% of votes in favour and quorum far exceeded. The proposal opened on 29 Apr and closes on 6 May. Token holders who opt out of the new terms would remain locked indefinitely but retain governance rights.
The developments come as the wider DeFi sector continues to grapple with the fallout from large token unlocks. Similar events in recent years for other governance-focused protocols have frequently triggered short-term price pressure as increased supply enters circulation.
Political connections initially fuelled strong demand and elevated valuations for WLFI, helping it reach peaks near $0.46 in late 2025. Yet, those same ties would now seem to amplify perceived risks for both retail and institutional participants, who point to documented voting concentration in prior proposals and the backdoor functionality claims in the ongoing lawsuit.
As the vote concludes next week, attention will turn to execution details and any further strategic adjustments.
