{"id":899703,"date":"2026-04-17T13:12:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T18:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/17\/trumps-world-liberty-under-fire-for-absurd-token-unlock-plan\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T13:12:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T18:12:02","slug":"trumps-world-liberty-under-fire-for-absurd-token-unlock-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/17\/trumps-world-liberty-under-fire-for-absurd-token-unlock-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s World Liberty under fire for \u2018absurd\u2019 token unlock plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"html-renderer-container\">\n<p>The Trump family\u2019s crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, is facing backlash over a new proposal to lock up tokens purchased by early investors for up to four years, or in some cases, indefinitely.<\/p>\n<p>World Liberty <a title=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/wlfi-unlock-proposal-62b-tokens-vesting-burn\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/wlfi-unlock-proposal-62b-tokens-vesting-burn\">posted the proposal<\/a> to its governance forum on Wednesday, which outlined that early investors would have their World Liberty Financial (WLFI) tokens locked for a further two years before their tokens would be released in batches over the following two years.<\/p>\n<p>According to the proposal, tokenholders who do not accept the new unlock schedule would \u201ccontinue to have their tokens locked indefinitely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The proposal saw wide opposition, with crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, one of the platform\u2019s advisers and <a title=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/justin-sun-invests-30-million-trump-world-liberty-financial\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/justin-sun-invests-30-million-trump-world-liberty-financial\">its biggest investor<\/a>, <a title=\"https:\/\/x.com\/justinsuntron\/status\/2044478300236746912\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/justinsuntron\/status\/2044478300236746912\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">posting<\/a> to X on Wednesday that the plan was \u201cone of the most absurd governance scams I have ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.cointelegraph.com\/uploads\/2026-04\/019d94d5-aaf5-7817-8bc2-0722cc1236cd.png\"><figcaption><em>Source: <\/em><a title=\"https:\/\/x.com\/justinsuntron\/status\/2044478300236746912\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/justinsuntron\/status\/2044478300236746912\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><em>Justin Sun<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Sun, who said he holds a 4% stake in World Liberty that is currently frozen, has recently made a series of public criticisms against the platform, taking issue with <a title=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/justin-sun-wlfi-platform-lawsuit\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/justin-sun-wlfi-platform-lawsuit\">a separate proposal<\/a> and accusing it of having <a title=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/justin-sun-urges-trump-wlfi-disclose-multi-sig\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/justin-sun-urges-trump-wlfi-disclose-multi-sig\">controls to blacklist wallets<\/a>, which World Liberty denied.<\/p>\n<p>Other critics of the proposal included Simon Dedic, the founder of venture firm Moonrock Capital, who <a title=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sjdedic\/status\/2044436339148386678\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sjdedic\/status\/2044436339148386678\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">posted<\/a> to X that early WLFI investors \u201cwho thought they were sitting on solid profits just got rugged.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis essentially gives them another shot at squeezing the same lemon they\u2019ve been inflating with hot air for the past two years. Which, what a surprise, lines up perfectly with the remainder of [Donald Trump\u2019s] term,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>World Liberty Financial did not respond to questions about the backlash, but spokesman David Wachsman told Cointelegraph in an emailed statement that the proposal \u201cwas designed to further align all the participants in the WLFI ecosystem for the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Related: <\/strong><\/em><a title=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/markets\/world-liberty-financial-s-wlfi-token-risks-20-price-drop\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/markets\/world-liberty-financial-s-wlfi-token-risks-20-price-drop\"><em><strong>WLFI may drop 20% as World Liberty Financial faces &#8216;LUNA 2.0&#8217; allegations<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sun\u2019s specific criticisms centered on the plan to indefinitely lock the tokens of those who disagreed with the proposal, accusing the platform of \u201ccoercion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also took issue with being \u201cforced out of this voting process\u201d due to World Liberty\u2019s freeze of his tokens and claimed that a \u201clarge number of holders with significant voting rights are in the same position.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wachsman added that voting on the proposal would begin soon and would run for a week.<\/p>\n<p>The price of the WLFI token has traded flat at 8 cents over the past 24 hours but is down by more than 40% so far this year, alongside a wider retraction in the crypto and share markets.<\/p>\n<p>WLFI has fallen more than 75% since its all-time high of 33 cents on Sept. 1, the token&#8217;s <a title=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/world-liberty-financial-proposes-token-buyback-and-burn-program-using-fees\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/world-liberty-financial-proposes-token-buyback-and-burn-program-using-fees\">first day of public trading<\/a> after holders voted to allow trading on the originally non-tradable token.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Magazine: <\/strong><\/em><a title=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/trumps-crypto-insider-trading-conflict-of-interest-concerns\/\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/trumps-crypto-insider-trading-conflict-of-interest-concerns\/\"><em><strong>Trump\u2019s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><template data-type=\"crypto_biz\" data-name=\"subscription_form\" data-label=\"Subscription Form: Crypto Biz Newsletter\"><\/template><\/div>\n<p>Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph\u2019s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently. Read our Editorial Policy <a href=\"http:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/editorial-policy\">https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/editorial-policy<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/trump-world-liberty-under-fire-token-unlock-plan?utm_source=rss_feed&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><br \/>\n Cointelegraph by Jesse Coghlan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump family\u2019s crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, is facing backlash over a new proposal to lock up tokens purchased by early investors for up to four years, or in some cases, indefinitely. World Liberty posted the proposal to its governance forum on Wednesday, which outlined that early investors would have their World Liberty Financial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":899704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[163,644],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-899703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-trumps","8":"category-world"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}