WLFI, a token tied to Trump’s World Liberty Financial, rose about 10% after the $3.5 trillion asset servicer said it would test the company’s $1 stablecoin as a settlement track for tokenized funds.
According to CoinDesk market data, WLFI rose more than Bitcoin or Ethereum in early Asian trading, with the latter two falling 0.5%.
The rally comes as speakers at the World Free Finance Forum at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday saw stablecoins as central to U.S. financial leadership.
“The reality is that the entire financial system in the next five years is going to look very different than it has been in the last 50 years,” Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said during the event. “It’s going to happen somewhere. We’re going to see a lot of innovation in financial services. The question is, is that going to happen in the United States or somewhere else?”
Senator Moreno stressed that lawmakers must “complete this market structure bill within the next 90 days,” arguing that clear rules for digital assets are crucial if the United States wants to lead the next phase of financial innovation rather than ceding it to overseas.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also spoke at the event about the importance of the Market Structure Act and said bank trade groups, rather than individual banks themselves, were to blame for the stalled progress.
World Liberty Financial co-founder Zak Folkman defines USD1 as more than just a retail stablecoin, describing it as an “institutional-grade dollar” designed for real-world settlement and cross-border use.
“When we wanted to build an institutional-grade dollar, that’s what we did,” Folkman said, adding that the token will have “real-time proof of reserves powered by Chainlink,” allowing users to verify on-chain support.
In early February, at the Consensus conference in Hong Kong, Folkman revealed the upcoming launch of the World Liberty foreign exchange platform.
On Wednesday, Folkman positioned $1 as a bridge for global payments and said the project would start with the U.S.-Mexico corridor and then expand to support up to 40 currencies. “It’s $1 as a settlement bridge,” he said.
Looking ahead, Folkman linked stablecoin use cases to AI-driven commerce.
“We are entering a world where AI agents need to trade autonomously,” he said. “AI agents can’t open bank accounts, they can’t sign checks, but they can hold stablecoins.”
“What we are building is a complete financial system,” Folkman added.