TRUMP-LINKED WORLD LIBERTY OPENS $3.4 BILLION TOKEN FOR LOAN BET

(Bloomberg) -- World Liberty Financial, the Miami-based crypto startup which says President Donald Trump is “co-founder emeritus,” is launching a new product aimed at expanding usage of its stablecoin.

The new platform, called World Liberty Markets, allows users to lend and borrow digital assets among one another. Debuting Monday, the service will support the firm’s own tokens — the USD1 stablecoin and another token called WLFI — alongside Ether and a form of tokenized Bitcoin, as well as USDC and USDT, the market’s leading stablecoins. 

Zak Folkman, a World Liberty co-founder, said additional collateral types will be added over time, potentially including real-world assets. He declined to elaborate, but the firm has previously floated the idea of tokenizing real estate tied to the Trump family business.

The move comes with World Liberty looking to broaden the use cases for USD1, which has grown to a $3.4 billion market value since its launch last year. The token’s fortunes are closely tied to Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, which helped create it and recently listed additional USD1 trading pairs. MGX, the Abu Dhabi investment firm, previously used the stablecoin to buy a $2 billion stake in Binance.

“We have a lot of partnerships that will be coming online in the next several weeks,” Folkman said. “With prediction markets, different crypto exchanges, real-estate opportunities. The team is working very hard to expand the usability [of USD1].”

Stablecoins are a form of cryptocurrency that are designed to mimic the price of another asset, most often the US dollar. Issuers make money by parking the reserves that underpin such tokens in US Treasuries and other assets, and pocketing the yield. Rival stablecoins, such as Tether’s USDT and Circle Internet Group Inc.’s USDC, are already widely used in lending and borrowing markets. 

World Liberty’s new service is powered by Dolomite, a lending-and-borrowing platform. “We think it can be huge, we think users are going to love it,” said Zach Witkoff, chief executive officer of World Liberty, in an interview. “It adds a lot of utility to USD1.”

World Liberty plans to roll out a mobile app later this year that will include the new lending-and-borrowing functionality, Folkman said. Folkman has also spoken at conferences about plans for a debit card that would let users spend its stablecoin and earn loyalty points.

The firm is currently seeking a US bank charter for one of its entities that would allow it to expand its USD1 operations and target more institutional users.

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2026-01-12T14:41:05Z