World Liberty Financial (WLFI) is facing criticism following a governance vote that approved a USD1 growth proposal, despite objections from the community over the lack of voting access for locked WLFI holders.
Onchain voting data shows that the largest “FOR” votes were cast by top wallets flagged as team-linked or strategic partner addresses, according to pseudonymous crypto trader and researcher DeFi^2.
The top nine wallets accounted for about 59% of total voting power, giving a small cluster of big holders effective control over the outcome of the USD1 growth proposal. The largest wallet contributed 18.786% of the total voting power based on the snapshot vote for WLFI governance.
“This is in contrast to the real voters lower in the screenshot, who have all been locked from accessing their WLFI tokens since TGE, and unable to vote on an unlock until the team allows it,” DeFi^2 claimed on X.
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USD1 proposal contrasts with WLFI tokenholder incentives
According to DeFi^2, the project’s focus on the USD1 growth proposal raises questions about why governance was used to expand the protocol rather than address restrictions affecting a large share of investors.
“The real motivation becomes clear when you recall the fine print that WLFI holders are not entitled to ANY protocol revenue at all,” the researcher wrote, adding that the project’s Gold Paper states that 75% of net income is allocated to entities linked to the Trump family and the remaining 25% to entities associated with the Witkoff family.
One tokenholder who voted against the proposal said the measure would further dilute investors without offering any clear benefit in return. The user argued that World Liberty Financial had previously used more than nine figures of investor capital to build a treasury of assets including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Chainlink (LINK), yet WLFI holders received no direct upside from those holdings.
“World Liberty Financial could easily liquidate their alt assets to support their USD1 incentives instead of diluting investors even more,” the user wrote.
Cointelegraph reached out to WLFI for comment, but had not received a response by publication.
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World Liberty applies for US banking charter
Earlier this month, World Liberty Financial applied for a national trust banking charter in the US to bring issuance, custody and conversion of its USD1 stablecoin under one regulated entity. The move would allow the firm to mint and redeem USD1 without third-party providers, offer fee-free conversions between dollars and USD1, and expand its services to institutional users.
Last week, the firm also launched World Liberty Markets, a new onchain lending and borrowing platform built around its USD1 stablecoin and WLFI governance token.
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