Trump-backed World Liberty Financial spends $10m buying back own token

Core Insights - World Liberty Financial, a crypto project associated with the Trump family, has initiated a buyback of its WLFI tokens, spending $10 million to acquire over 59 million tokens through CoW Swap, following a governance vote that approved the use of generated fees for buybacks and token burns [1][2]. Company Overview - World Liberty Financial is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol aiming to provide lending, borrowing, and exchange services using its USD1 stablecoin [2]. - The project previously sold 35 billion WLFI tokens for a total of $550 million between October and March, allowing token holders to vote on protocol decisions [5]. Market Performance - Despite the buyback efforts, WLFI has seen minimal investor interest, with only a 0.4% increase in trading over the past 24 hours and a 50% decline from its all-time high in September [2]. - The buyback on October 10 involved approximately $9 million for nearly 51 million tokens, indicating a trend among DeFi protocols to buy back tokens to boost investor confidence [6]. Industry Trends - A report from Keyrock highlighted that the top 12 revenue-distributing DeFi protocols collectively spent nearly $800 million on token buybacks and revenue-sharing activities in July, marking a more than 400% increase since the beginning of 2024 [7]. - The practice of buybacks in the crypto space is likened to public companies, where it serves to signal long-term commitment and enhance token value [8].