coindesk.com
Trump’s World Liberty stake now has a path to becoming sellable in 2028, just as Congress weighs tougher crypto ethics rules.
Six wallets holding World Liberty Financial's insider allocation of $WLFI tokens entered a vesting contract in May that sets a timetable for the previously locked tokens to eventually become sellable, blockchain data show.
One of those wallets holds about 14 billion of $WLFI after the required burn, which is the same amount disclosed as President Donald Trump’s ‘founder allocation’ stake of Trump’s family-linked company’s token.
While the roughly $800 million in tokens (at the current price of $WLFI) are still not immediately sellable, the new schedule is the closest map to when the president's stake could be turned into cash. The vesting schedule imposes a two-year cliff, meaning the first unlock would not occur until 2028.
The new timeline comes as the latest version of the Clarity Act contains stricter ethics rules that would require senior government officials with significant crypto holdings to divest those interests or place them in a qualified blind trust. Trump has reportedly agreed to the new provision, which has been one of the biggest obstacles to getting the bill through the Senate.
However, it may not mean that the new vesting transaction was made in anticipation of the legislation. The wallets entered the contract months before the Clarity Act’s latest language emerged, while World Liberty published the mechanism’s terms weeks before the wallets entered the new vesting schedule.
On May 19, the six wallets moved 30 billion $WLFI into the vesting contract. The rules required that 10% of the tokens be destroyed upon entering the new schedule.
The news of the new vesting contract was reported on Sunday by The Washington Sun.
Additionally, the proposal that created the schedule was passed on or around May 6 with 11,537 wallets supporting it. It gave founder-token holders the option to exchange an indefinite lockup for a two-year cliff followed by a three-year vesting period. $WLFI's own documentation states that joining was optional. Holders who declined to join stay locked indefinitely.
"The community voted in support of a founder burn. For this to happen, co-founders moved their tokens into a smart contract that would effectuate the burn. The same governance proposal ensures that co-founders have the strictest conditions and the longest vesting schedule of all token holders," David Wachsman, spokesman for World Liberty Financial, told CoinDesk.