Key Takeaways
World Liberty Financial launched the USD1 stablecoin on BNB Chain.
The project is working on three products, including a lending and borrowing market.
World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a DeFi project backed by President Trump and his sons, has tested a new stablecoin called USD1 on the BNB Chain, according to on-chain data tracked by Lookonchain.
Trump’s World Liberty (@worldlibertyfi) has deployed a stablecoin, $USD1, on @BNBChain. And Wintermute’s public wallet appears to have run some test transfers with $USD1. https://t.co/lgH9DWJ8uJ
Wintermute’s public wallet has reportedly been involved. The wallet has conducted several test transfers with the USD1 stablecoin, including cross-chain technology tests between Ethereum and BNB Chain networks, according to an analysis by crypto trader INVEST Y, which was confirmed by Binance’s co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.
INVEST Y (@INVESTYOFFICIAL) tweeted: “They have issued a stablecoin called USD1(ETH, BSC) and are doing several tests and it seems Wintermute is also involved. Keep an eye out ” https://t.co/cu9wYWed3v
Decrypt reported last October that WLFI was in the process of developing a native stablecoin. According to sources, the project team was prioritizing the assurance of safety and reliability prior to the stablecoin’s release to the market.
WLFI’s co-founder hints at upcoming product launches
The stablecoin deployment follows WLFI’s completion of $550 million in token sales earlier this month. In a statement following this success, Zak Folkman, the project’s co-founder, said these sales were just the initial steps.
Folkman shared a recent talk with Chainlink’s co-founder Sergey Nazarov that there would be some “really big announcements” in the next couple of weeks.
The project has formed partnerships with blockchain protocols including Chainlink and Aave to enhance its DeFi offerings and utilize decentralized oracle services.
“In terms of what we’re building, I would say that we have three main products that we’re actually building and developing. Two of which are already done and ready to ship,” said Folkman.
While Folkman kept mum about the first, he revealed that the other two were a lend-and-borrow market powered by smart contracts and a protocol focused on real-world assets (RWAs).
“We’re just working on staging so that we can really get through our entire product roadmap and roll it out in a way that’s meaningful and makes sense,” he explained.
Unlike traditional DeFi lending platforms that rely on decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), World Liberty Financial will manage its lending market through its own governance process. This allows the company to maintain control and tailor the platform to meet the specific needs of its users, particularly TradFi institutions.
“When you look at traditional financial institutions, there’s a lot of these TradFi institutions that right now today have a bunch of tokenized assets,” Folkman explained. “But the problem is they don’t actually have a use case for how they can utilize them, deploy them, market them, etc.”
World Liberty Financial aims to address this challenge by providing a platform that seamlessly integrates TradFi assets into the DeFi ecosystem. This includes offering access to products like money market accounts, commercial real estate, debt, and securities, which are currently unavailable in the DeFi space.
The company is actively engaging with TradFi institutions, many of which are already exploring or developing tokenized assets. However, these institutions require a regulated and KYC-compliant partner to facilitate their entry into DeFi.
“They need to be able to interact with a real business that they can KYC, they know who the principles are, and they can, you know, put together a commercial deal,” Folkman stated.
Folkman added that as a US corporation with fully KYC’d principles, World Liberty Financial is well-positioned to serve as this bridge.
“It’s kind of funny to think of the idea of a major TradFi institution going to a governance forum and posting a proposal,” Folkman noted, highlighting the impracticality of traditional DeFi governance for these institutions.
The company’s strategy involves a phased rollout, starting with the lending protocol, followed by the RWA protocol. These two protocols are expected to converge, enabling the creation of lending markets for RWA-backed assets.
