Quick Breakdown
- US Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jack Reed are urging federal regulators to investigate WLFI for allegedly conducting token sales to addresses linked to sanctioned entities.
- The Trump family controls 75% of WLFI’s token sale revenue, raising concerns about financial conflicts of interest.
- A new blockchain analysis suggests accusations of North Korea-linked token purchases were false positives triggered by a joke memecoin.
Two Democratic senators are urging federal authorities to investigate World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto company with deep ties to US President Donald Trump’s family, over alleged links to sanctioned actors from North Korea and Russia.
The call for scrutiny follows claims that questionable blockchain addresses gained access to the firm’s governance tokens, a situation that lawmakers say may pose national security risks.
Lawmakers warn of “adversaries at the table”
In a letter submitted to Attorney General Pamela Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jack Reed argued that WLFI’s token sales may have enabled foreign entities to obtain governance influence within the protocol.
Their concerns were reportedly triggered by a September analysis from Washington-based watchdog Accountable.US. The watchdog alleged that WLFI sold tokens to wallets connected to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, a sanctioned Russian evasion service, an Iranian crypto exchange, and Tornado Cash. According to the senators, such sales could have effectively “given adversaries a seat at the table.”
World Liberty Financial strongly disputed the accusations, insisting it conducts strict AML/KYC checks and has already rejected millions of dollars from buyers who failed compliance screening.
Trump family’s dominant ownership draws political heat
Adding weight to the controversy is WLFI’s ownership structure. Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Barron Trump are listed as co-founders, while Donald Trump holds the title of “Co-Founder Emeritus.” A Trump-linked entity, DT Marks DEFI LLC, reportedly controls 22.5 billion WLFI tokens, valued at $3 billion, and receives 75% of all token sale revenues.
Warren and Reed warned that this arrangement creates a financial conflict of interest at the highest levels of government. They noted that three-quarters of proceeds from WLFI token sales “flow directly to President Trump and his family,” raising questions about oversight and influence.
The senators also criticized the company’s rapid expansion plans, which include a crypto-backed debit card and tokenized commodities, arguing that weak compliance controls could “supercharge illicit finance activity.” Bithumb also partnered with WLFi in September to expand the global crypto network
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