The Trump family-backed protocol’s “Super Node” tier promises partnership discussions with the WLFI team.
World Liberty Financial, the decentralized finance (DeFi) project affiliated with President Trump’s family, has passed a governance proposal that offers investors who lock up 50M WLFI tokens “direct WLFI team access,” raising fresh ethics questions about the intersection of the Trump family’s crypto business and the White House.
The vote by holders of World Liberty tokens closed Thursday with 99% of ballots in favor and 1,786 votes cast, according to Snapshot data.
The WLFI token is up 7% over the past week, according to Coingecko.
$5 Million for a Seat at the Table
The proposal creates a tiered staking system that requires WLFI holders to lock their tokens for 180 days to retain governance voting rights. At the top tier, users staking 50 million WLFI, worth roughly $5 million at current prices, are promised “guaranteed direct access to the WLFI team for partnership discussions,” according to the original proposal.
After Reuters reported on the arrangement, WLFI spokesman David Wachsman sought to narrow the scope of the offer. He characterized it as “preferential access” to the business development team and executives, not to specific founders, and said that becoming a Super Node does not guarantee a partnership.
Two-thirds of the voting power came from just five wallets. While the majority of responses on the governance forum supported the proposal, some community members questioned the project’s lack of transparency around the release of locked tokens from the initial sale.
Meanwhile, World Liberty is currently seeking approval for a U.S. banking license, a process that has drawn scrutiny from ethics experts and congressional opponents.