Better Crypto Buy: Ethereum vs. World Liberty Financial

Key Points

• Ethereum is a leading blockchain for a plethora of different purposes.

• World Liberty Financial issues a stablecoin, and it might do other things in the future.

• Only one of these assets is investment-grade right now.

• 10 stocks we like better than Ethereum ›

Is it preferable to invest in a platform or in a product? In crypto, that question is seldom clear, and it's the basis for a lot of hand-wringing from investors.

That brings us to the current dilemma. On one side is Ethereum, (CRYPTO: ETH) a general‑purpose smart contract-capable blockchain with a large roster of developers and a steady cadence of major upgrades; on the other side is World Liberty Financial, (CRYPTO: WLFI) a governance token attached to a Trump family company with the same name whose flagship product is the USD1, (CRYPTO: USD1) stablecoin. Which is the better buy, and why?

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Ethereum's flywheel is proven to work

Healthy crypto platforms attract developers, assets, investors, and users, then technology upgrades expand what each of those groups can do, while gas fees enable the platform to harvest value from ongoing use.

On the people front, Ethereum still leads on developer share, which historically correlates with the pace of new applications being launched as crypto tokens, as well as the pace of sustained value creation. The reason for that is that the chain's capacity has been expanding at a steady clip over the last few years. The latest upgrade, Pectra, went live on May 7, bringing an improved wallet experience and better scaling features, which are changes that should reduce the friction of onboarding new users and new capital, and also enable richer app design.

But aside from having the human ingredients for a healthy project ecosystem -- and make no mistake, Ethereum's ecosystem is the biggest and healthiest in the crypto sector by a large margin -- where does the next big dollop of incremental demand for buying Ethereum come from?

Real‑world asset (RWA) tokenization, where Ethereum is the largest venue by on‑chain value, is almost certainly one good answer to that question. As of Sept. 16, tokenized RWA value across all cryptocurrency networks is $30.1 billion, with about $9.1 billion hosted on Ethereum, giving it an impressive 54.3% share of the market. The chain's biggest RWA by value is tokenized U.S. Treasuries, of which it has $5.1 billion. As a result, if institutional investors or financial institutions are looking for a place to do business, they're probably going to be attracted to the chain, as it already has the large amount of liquidity they need in precisely the assets they like to use the most.

Put together, Ethereum offers multiple independent paths for value to compound. More apps get produced because there are more developers, investors experience lower friction because the base chain keeps upgrading, and more high‑quality assets are settling on its rails to attract institutional capital.

World Liberty Financial is a bet on a brand

World Liberty Financial is building a suite of crypto products, headlined by USD1.

Per the project's own legal disclosures, holding the governance token carries no equity, no entitlement to any revenue share, and no claims on assets owned by the parent company. Its sole utility is governance, with explicit language specifying that it provides no economic rights. So, right off the bat, there is a problem for investors in the sense that holding the token does not carry any direct exposure to the company's financial success, nor does it confer any hard control.

As far as the stablecoin product itself, USD1's pitch is essentially the same as every other stablecoin's pitch, namely that it's a way to use fiat currency on the blockchain. There is no indication of USD1 having any competitive advantages or differentiation from its peers, nor is there any indication that World Liberty Financial has any kind of economic moat to prevent other stablecoins from contesting the market share of its coin.

Nonetheless, using USD1 does incur fees and generate value that accrues to its issuer. Unless World Liberty Financial gains a durable, credibly enforced claim on issuer economics, its fundamentals are unlikely to track USD1's scale; its market cap is currently around $2.6 billion.

Could World Liberty Financial still work as a speculative purchase?

It might, but don't bet on it (and don't do financial speculation either; it isn't real investing). Assuming World Liberty develops and ships useful apps, secures major distribution partners for its stablecoin, and aligns its governance token incentives to be entirely different, it could benefit from some market enthusiasm bidding up the price of its token. It could even become a good investment someday, if everything about it changes completely. But right now, it's a bad pick, as there's simply no way that the company's success can flow through to its holders.

Ethereum is, therefore, the dramatically better long‑term buy in my view. It's a platform with multiple compounding loops, plenty of different avenues for growth, a clear upgrade roadmap, and growing participation from traditional finance. Capital is flowing in, and it's getting comfortable -- so you should get some Ethereum exposure.

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Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.