World Liberty Financial Inc., the crypto project co-founded by President Donald Trump, is facing a fresh round of criticism after proposing that some tokens owned by some early investors remain unavailable for trading indefinitely -- or at least until Trump leaves office.
The proposal, which was posted in the project's governance forum Wednesday, requires early investors to agree to keep the majority of the WLFI tokens they bought locked -- or unavailable for trading -- for another two years. They would then start to receive their tokens gradually over the following two years. Those who don't agree to this proposal will see their tokens locked "indefinitely," the proposal said. The tokens are trading near a record low price.
The proposition comes as World Liberty is already facing investor ire. Last week, billionaire backer Justin Sun accused the project of secretly building controls that let insiders freeze token holders' funds. World Liberty denied the accusations. Investors have also been complaining about the project depositing its own WLFI tokens as collateral on lending platform Dolomite to borrow stablecoins. Critics said the move could result in forced liquidation and let World Liberty extract cash before others' tokens are unlocked. World Liberty said it can top up its collateral to prevent liquidation and has roundly rejected that it's exiting any positions.
In March, World Liberty pushed through a governance proposal that could reduce the voting power of early investors in key decisions. All the governance proposals World Liberty's team has ever posted so far have been approved.
The early investors bought the project's WLFI token in sales that took place in late 2024 and early 2025, when the token was supposed to not be used for trading at all. But that quickly changed. The project allowed holders to start trading 20% of these tokens last year. Still, 80% of their tokens have remained locked, with no unlocking schedule proposed -- until now.
"It's crazy, especially how they phrase it, you either vote 'Yes' or your tokens are locked indefinitely," said Morten Christensen, an early WLFI investor who plans to vote against the proposal. "I don't think anyone had the audacity to try something like this."
The official vote on the proposal is expected to start soon and to last a week, according to World Liberty spokesperson David Wachsman.
The price of the WLFI token has dropped 1.2% over the last 24 hours, to 8 cents, and is down 16.5% over the last seven days, according to data compiled by CoinGecko. The value has fallen by more than half since some of the early investors' tokens became tradable last year.
Investors typically agree to lockups so as huge swaths of coins don't hit the market all at once. An unlock schedule helps to support a coin's price. A typical token is locked for six to 12 months after it's purchased, and then investors receive all their tokens to trade over the following two to four years. To be sure, long unlocks can push some investors to lose interest in and to stop supporting a project.
"This proposal was designed to optimally ensure long-term participation in our ecosystem and help ensure healthy market supply," Wachsman said.
Other holders of unlocked tokens -- including the project's team and founders, including the Trump family -- will also see their tokens locked up for two years, then gradually released over the following three years, the proposal said. In addition, 10% of their locked tokens -- or 4.5 billion WLFI -- will be burned, meaning they can never be sold.
Having some kind of an unlock schedule is still better than having none, said Christensen, who runs AirdropAlert.com.
"If nobody knows how long a token is locked, that means uncertainty," Christensen said. "If this passes, this creates certainty. There won't be any dumping from the team or early investors. I think they are trying to give the price some support. Sometimes a bad unlock schedule is better than no unlock schedule at all."
Christensen plans to vote against the latest unlocking schedule proposal partly because he hopes a later governance vote may unlock tokens that are locked indefinitely.
"First of all, it's just a signal, you can't do this to the community," Christensen said. "We also think there's a chance there will be another governance vote. This looks like a very bad deal, but at least there's a chance for something better down the line."