Key Highlights:
- Trump-linked World Liberty Financial is eyeing a debit card and retail app launch.
- The project aims to seamlessly integrate their USD1 stablecoin into Apple Pay.
- The firm also partnered with one of the largest crypto exchanges in South Korea, Bithumb.
The decentralized finance project, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), which has ties to U.S. President Donald Trump’s family, is planning to launch new products as it seeks to establish itself as a bridge between digital assets and traditional payments.
WLFI Co-Founder Reveals Major Future Plans
On Tuesday, speaking at the Impact conference of Korea Blockchain Week 2025 in Seoul, WLFI co-founder Zak Folkman announced the project would launch its own debit card. He explained that the product was a new application that would be compatible with the platform stablecoin and Apple Pay.
“[This] allows users to be able to attach their USD1 and their World Liberty Financial app right into their Apple Pay,” Folkman told attendees. He added, “Not today, but it’s coming very soon.”
The debit card is placed within the broader ecosystem that the firm is building. With it, World Liberty Financial is developing a retail-based application which will combine peer-to-peer payments and investment-like features. Folkman likened the idea to mainstream fintech platforms which he termed as “Venmo meets Robinhood.”
The company is, however, drawing a clear line regarding blockchain infrastructure. Folkman emphasized that creating a proprietary chain is not part of the roadmap. “We will never put out a World Liberty Financial chain,” he said. “It’s literally the opposite of our entire mentality when it comes to a stablecoin.” He added that the team’s role is “not to roll out chains or exchanges or anything like that, but to be completely agnostic when it comes to chains, technology, distribution platforms.”
For context, World Liberty Financial was established in September 2024 and came to the market to bridge decentralized finance to traditional financial services. The venture introduced its own governance token WLFI and its own stablecoin USD1 as its initial products in the industry.
The introduction of WLFI had created a major buzz, but it has since then been encountering market headwinds. The token has fallen 37% since its coin was made tradeable on September 1, and dropped 10.28% in the past 24 hours to $0.21.
Folkman accepted the volatility, but he put it in the framework of the long-term perspective of the project. “The focus on building and developing and growing the product suite and USD1 and all of everything else that’s coming out from World Liberty Financial,” he said during the session.
He added, “We’re not in this to run a sprint; this truly is a marathon. World Liberty Financial is not thinking in terms of months or even years. We’re thinking in terms of decades and how we can build products that have staying power.”
WLFI Secures Partnership with South Korea’s Bithumb
Other than product announcements, the project revealed a new partnership in South Korea. World Liberty Financial, which was established by Alan three years ago, signed a memorandum of understanding with Bithumb, one of the top South Korean crypto exchanges. The deal was accompanied by a ceremony at Bithumb Financial Center in the Gangnam district at Seoul and attended by executives such as Bithumb CEO Lee Jae-won and Folkman.
Both parties indicated that the agreement would create the opportunity to consider joint ventures and wider strategic opportunities. A statement described the goal as a way to “collaborate on discovering new business opportunities and reinforcing global investor trust.”
The venture comes after the two organizations have been involved in previous interactions, such as a meeting in Hong Kong in August, where another co-founder of World Liberty Financial, Eric Trump, met with Lee at the Bitcoin Asia 2025 conference. During the ceremony on Tuesday, Lee put the collaboration in strategic terms as an exchange. “This collaboration with World Liberty Financial will mark an important milestone in enhancing Bithumb’s global competitiveness,” he said, according to The Korea Herald. Further, Lee stated that the firm will continue its expansion with the help of alliances.
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