World Liberty Financial Cites ‘Coordinated Attack’ — But Are There Deeper Issues?

[Ben Graham]

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the decentralized finance (DeFi) venture associated with President Donald Trump and his sons, said early Monday that it had been targeted in what it described as a “coordinated attack” involving its stablecoin, USD1.

According to CoinGecko data, USD1 — which carries a market capitalization of nearly $4.8 billion — briefly lost its dollar peg before recovering to $1. The temporary dislocation drew immediate attention across crypto markets, particularly given the project’s political ties and growing profile within the digital asset sector.

World Liberty Financial Addresses Incident 

In a statement posted on its official account on X (previously Twitter), the project alleged that multiple attack vectors were deployed simultaneously. “A coordinated attack was launched against USD1 this morning,” WLFI wrote. 

The team claimed that hackers compromised several cofounder accounts, paid influencers to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD), and opened significant short positions in the WLFI token in an attempt to profit from market disruption.

A spokesperson for World Liberty told Bloomberg that the company’s engineering and security teams had successfully countered the incident. The spokesperson described the event as a multi‑pronged attempt to undermine confidence in the project, but said internal systems functioned as intended. 

Beyond the temporary depeg itself, online speculation quickly shifted toward another development that some community members believe could be connected. 

A social media user known as Chris Coffee suggested that the alleged attack might relate to a forthcoming insider trading investigation teased by on‑chain investigator ZachXBT. 

Insider Probe Speculation Grows

ZachXBT announced on X that he plans to publish a report on February 26 detailing alleged insider trading by employees of “one of the most profitable crypto companies.”

The timing has fueled conjecture. Some users pointed to reports that Eric Trump, who has been publicly supportive of WLFI, deleted several posts related to the project following the stablecoin’s volatility. He later posted again about WLFI, further drawing attention to the situation. 

In crypto circles, speculation intensified that World Liberty Financial could be the subject of the pending investigation, though no evidence has been presented to confirm such claims.

The conversation has even extended to prediction markets. On Polymarket, bettors are placing odds on which company ZachXBT’s investigation might target. 

Current probabilities cited on the platform assign roughly a 20% chance to Pump.fun, 18% to World Liberty Financial, and 14% to Binance. 

For now, there is no confirmed link between Monday’s reported “coordinated attack” on USD1 and the investigation scheduled for release on February 26. Whether the two events are related or simply coincidental remains uncertain. 

As of this writing, the company’s native token, WLIF, is trading at $0.1121. This represents a 66% gap between the current trading price and the token’s all-time high of $0.33. 

Featured image from Sky, chart from TradingView.com