World Liberty Financial, the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol linked to US President Donald Trump’s family, put a $5 million price tag on “direct access” to team members in a near-unanimous governance vote.
Token holders of the Eric and Barron Trump-backed company approved a proposal on Friday that creates a three-tier staking system for its WLFI governance token.
The Base level requires a 180-day block to vote. The Node level requires staking 10 million WLFI, approximately $1 million, and grants the ability to convert stablecoins to $1 WLFI at 1:1 parity through authorized market makers. The Super Node tier requires 50 million WLFI, approximately $5 million, and grants “guaranteed direct access to the WLFI team for partnership discussions.”
The vote obtained 99.12% in favor of 1,800 votes cast. More than 76% of the voting tokens came from just 10 wallets.
WLFI spokesman David Wachsman told Reuters on Sunday that “direct access” refers to the business development team and executives, not specific founders, and does not guarantee a partnership.
The company’s own Gold Paper, however, lists co-founders Eric Trump, Barron Trump, and Steven Witkoff’s sons, Zach and Alex, as part of the team that “supports WLF’s commitment.”
The stated motivation for the proposal is to redirect value from market makers to long-term participants.
WLFI said that during its $1 stablecoin expansion, market makers captured millions in arbitrage at about 15 basis points per cycle, and WLFI paid millions more in bailout subsidies. Instead, the Node and Super Node structure directs that economy to large stakeholders.
The Super Node level is where the proposal goes beyond the governance mechanics. Currently, WLFI receives “more partnership inquiries than it can productively address,” the proposal says.
The $5 million participation requirement “serves as a filter to prioritize projects and platforms that actively support and participate in the WLFI ecosystem, rather than those that seek partnerships purely opportunistically.”
Projects that want to talk to the team must now invest in WLFI tokens and lock them for six months. That creates buying pressure on the token, reduces circulating supply, and generates a captive audience of large holders who are financially invested in the success of the protocol before any partnership discussions even begin.
Meanwhile, WLFI is also seeking a national trust bank charter through the OCC, exploring the tokenization of real estate and oil and gas assets, and considering creating a publicly traded company to hold WLFI tokens.
