The cryptocurrency project Donald Trump announced last month officially launched on Tuesday, but sales of the WLFI tokens fell a long way short of expectations. CNBC reports that World Liberty Financial expected to raise around $300 million in the initial sale. But by Wednesday afternoon, only around 821 million of the 20 billion tokens had been sold at 0.015 cents each, raising around $12 million for the venture. On the eve of the launch, project co-founder Zachary Folkman said, well over 100,000 people" were whitelisted to invest in the venture. According to blockchain data, fewer than 10% of them did so.
Sales of the tokens on the first day were disrupted by multiple website outages. CNBC reports that another roadblock was the fact that WLFI is a "Regulation D token offering, which means retail investors have largely been cut out of the process." The company says tokens will be sold only to accredited investors, though Kevin T. Dugan at Intelligencer says he received an email last week "pushing me to buy them, despite having no accreditation whatsoever."
Dugan describes World Liberty Financial as "a loosely defined lending business that mimicked some of the more spectacular failures of the last crypto bubble." One reason the venture may be "floundering," he writes, "may be that it is so clearly a way to scam people out of their money." The tokens are currently nontransferable, and while the venture promotes itself as a decentralized project, around 70% of the tokens—and "real control" of the venture—will be retained by its founders and other insiders, Quartz reports. (More World Liberty Financial stories.)
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