Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) launched a scathing criticism against the Trump family's cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), on September 3, 2025. She labeled the project's reported $5 billion in unrealized gains as 'corruption, plain and simple' in a post on social media platform X.
The WLFI token, a governance token for a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, began trading on September 2, 2025, experiencing extreme volatility. It reached a peak of $0.46 before plummeting 46% to settle around $0.25. Despite this volatility, the token generated approximately $1 billion in trading volume within just one hour of its debut.
The Trump family held over 22.5 billion WLFI tokens, which temporarily pushed their paper fortune to approximately $5 billion - surpassing the value of their real estate holdings. Warren expressed deep concern about this sudden wealth accumulation, highlighting potential conflicts of interest and the need for stricter cryptocurrency regulations, particularly involving prominent political figures.
Warren's criticism extends beyond WLFI to include the Trump family's other crypto projects, including the Official Trump TRUMP/USD joke currency and the USD1 stablecoin, which was part of a $2 billion agreement with Binance and Emirati company MGX. She argues these projects avoid accountability and enable profiteering.
The senator's position is supported by other lawmakers including Senators Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen, who warn that such arrangements could violate the Emoluments Clause and allow foreign influence. Warren's concerns are amplified by the involvement of controversial figures like Justin Sun, a WLFI investor currently under SEC investigation.
This controversy highlights the growing political divide in U.S. cryptocurrency regulation, with the Trump administration supporting crypto initiatives including a strategic Bitcoin reserve, while critics like Warren demand stricter rules to prevent corruption and protect the financial system.