Senator Warren Slams Trump Family’s WLFI Token Launch as Corruption

Highlights:

• Senator Warren calls Trump-linked WLFI token launch “corruption, plain and simple.”
• WLFI token peaks at $0.40, then drops to $0.22 post-launch.
• The Trump family’s locked WLFI holdings reach $5 billion in estimated paper value.

Massachusetts Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren criticized the Donald Trump family’s involvement in the recently launched WLFI, the governance token of World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance platform. On September 2, Warren took to X to denounce the project, calling it “corruption, plain and simple.”

The WLFI token made its public trading debut on September 1. Donald Trump is recognized as Co-Founder Emeritus, while Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are active co-founders. Following the launch, the Trump family’s holdings in the cryptocurrency have temporarily risen in value, adding nearly $5 billion to their paper wealth. Paper value refers to the estimated market worth of their holdings at current token prices, not actual cash.

It’s corruption, plain and simple. pic.twitter.com/OLfpGpkTQR

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) September 2, 2025

WLFI Slides After Launch

After launching, WLFI reached an approximate high of $0.40, according to CoinMarketCap data. By Tuesday morning, the token’s price had dropped to about $0.21, and now it’s trading at $0.22. Even with these fluctuations, the Trump family’s 22.5 billion WLFI tokens still hold a paper valuation of around $5 billion. The Trump family is currently unable to liquidate their WLFI holdings because the founders’ tokens are still locked, according to World Liberty Financial.

Warren has long been a vocal critic of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency projects, including the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin and the USD1 stablecoin pegged to the dollar. She argued that proposed crypto legislation, such as the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act, did little to tackle this type of corruption. 

“We need strong crypto regulation, not an industry giveaway that puts our economy at risk and supercharges President Trump’s corruption,” Warren said in an earlier statement. She emphasized the need for strict regulations in the cryptocurrency industry. Warren also proposed banning elected officials from trading or running crypto businesses, citing Trump’s involvement.

World Liberty Fires 47M Tokens to Boost Price

World Liberty Financial has started burning tokens to try and raise its falling price. According to on-chain data reported by Lookonchain, the platform destroyed 47 million WLFI tokens on Wednesday, permanently reducing the total supply. WLFI began trading on secondary markets this Monday, allowing early investors to publicly sell their tokens. 

Crypto projects frequently conduct token burns to shrink supply, potentially raising the value of the tokens that remain. According to CoinMarketCap, roughly 24.66 billion WLFI tokens, just over 25% of the original 100 billion total supply, have been unlocked so far. The recent burn accounts for approximately 0.19% of the circulating WLFI tokens. The team says burning tokens will boost long-term holders’ share and remove uncommitted tokens.

WLFI(@worldlibertyfi) burned 47M $WLFI($11.34M) 8 hours ago.https://t.co/6RFU5aD933 pic.twitter.com/Jd0M3qgvY0

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 3, 2025

Kevin Rusher, founder of RAAC, said the hype around WLFI shows crypto is still immature. He believes long-term growth depends on institutional adoption, not celebrity-backed tokens. Rusher warned that speculative trading can harm trust in crypto, which hurts efforts to build a stable financial system.