Trump-backed WLFI stablecoin USD1 enters DeFi space with strong early activity

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the DeFi project backed by President Trump’s family, appears to have launched its highly anticipated stablecoin USD1. Reports from blockchain aggregators and on-chain data show that the stablecoin is already trading with over $100 million in market cap.

According to data from CoinMarketCap and Coingecko, USD1 has already started trading. CoinMarketCap data shows that the token has a trading volume of $72 million, which has increased by over 1,000% in the last 24 hours, while its market cap is $128 million. However, Coingecko data shows that USDI has had a 24-hour trading volume of $138 million with a total supply of $7 million.

Despite the disparity between the figures from the two platforms, their data show there has been activity regarding USDI with Coingecko, including contract addresses for the stablecoin on BNB Smart Chain (BSC) and Ethereum.

Onchain data also supports this information. The BSC official account on X reports that over 113 million USD1 tokens have been minted on the network. An analysis of the contract address shows that there have already been over 20,000 transfers, with 326 holders for the stablecoin.

One user also observed that the logo for USD1 has changed on CoinMarketCap, noting that the new logo will likely be the final one for the stablecoin

WLFI is quiet even as Lista DAO creates a USD1 lending vault

Meanwhile, WLFI has not issued any statement on the launch of the USD1 stablecoin. Since it announced plans to launch a stablecoin on March 25, its most recent update on USDI was on April 7, when it posted a proposal to airdrop the stablecoin to all the holders of the USD1 token.

At the time, it said this proposal was to test the airdrop functionality of its protocol. However, no decision has been made on whether to proceed with the airdrop, even though many people in the community support the idea.

Despite the official silence on the launch, at least one DeFi protocol on BSC has integrated the token. Lista DAO, a lending platform on the network, said it now has a USD1 lending vault with 20 million tokens in liquidity.

Onchain data also shows that crypto market maker DWF Labs received 11 million USD1 tokens from WLFI on BSC and Ethereum networks over the past week and have started deploying the tokens on-chain to liquidity pools Uniswap and PancakeSwap.

 USD1 enters the crowded stablecoin space

The sneak launch of USD1 adds a new player to the already-crowded stablecoin space. Over 200 stablecoins compete for relevance, and only two Tether USDT and Circle USDC account for more than 80% of the $233.6 billion supply.

With affiliations to a Trump-backed project and backing from BitGo, USDI has already attracted sizable interest and will be looking to compete with more established stablecoins, including Ripple RLUSD and PayPal PYUSD.

However, not all the interest in USD1 has been positive. Some lawmakers, including the ranking Democrat in the House Financial Services Committee, Rep Maxine Waters, are concerned that Trump may seek to use the stablecoin for government payments.

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