\n<\/p>\n
The people behind World Liberty Financial \u2014 former President Donald Trump, his sons, and his business associates \u2014 have made a lot of promises about the cryptocurrency platform\u2019s revolutionary potential. It will liberate \u201cthe average American\u201d from \u201cthe big banks and financial elites,\u201d Trump posted<\/a> on Truth Social. It will help unbanked and debanked people, Donald Trump Jr. said<\/a> in an X Space. What no one involved with the project has said<\/a> is how this will happen or what, exactly, World Liberty Financial does. <\/strong>Now, the mystery service is accepting signups \u2014 but not from everyone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Despite scant details about World Liberty Financial, its whitelists are now open, the company announced<\/a> on X and Truth Social on Monday. The platform is now letting US-based accredited investors and non-US persons begin the know-your-customer (KYC) verification process. It\u2019s worth reiterating: neither Trump nor anyone else involved in World Liberty Financial has given an in-depth explanation of what service the platform actually provides.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here\u2019s what we do know: World Liberty Financial has said its goal is to drive \u201cmass adoption of stable coins and decentralized finance.\u201d Near the end of a two-hour-plus X Space announcing the project, World Liberty Financial adviser Corey Caplan said it would \u201csell and otherwise distribute governance tokens called WLFI.\u201d CoinDesk<\/em> previously reported<\/a> that World Liberty Financial would be built on the Ethereum blockchain and Aave, a decentralized finance platform, and would center around a \u201ccredit account system.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n CoinDesk<\/em> also obtained a whitepaper about the project, which said that 70 percent of WLFI would be held by World Liberty Financial\u2019s founding members, team, and service providers. But during the stream announcing the platform, Caplan said the \u201cfake news media\u201d got the details wrong and that 63 percent of tokens would be sold to the public.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAdditional information about World Liberty Financial is only intended to be available to persons who have been pre-qualified by completing a KYC process,\u201d World Liberty Financial\u2019s website states. In a post on X, World Liberty Financial blamed \u201coutdated policy and regulations in the US\u201d that limited whitelists to accredited investors and non-US persons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Securities and Exchange Commission defines accredited investors as individuals with net worths of at least $1 million \u2014 excluding the value of their <\/strong>primary residence \u2014 either individually or with their spouse or partner. Their annual income must be at least $200,000 individually or $300,000 with a spouse or partner for at least the past two years. There are other requirements for professionals and business entities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As of 2022, more than 24 million American households qualified as accredited investors<\/a>, according to the SEC\u2019s estimates. That\u2019s a not insignificant amount of Americans \u2014 nearly 20 percent of households in the US, a number that\u2019s attributed partly to recent inflation. But it\u2019s still a far cry from the unbanked and underserved communities Trump and his sons claimed World Liberty Financial is supposed to help. And, to reiterate one final time: we still don\u2019t know what it does.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n