Traditional Finance Giant World Liberty Financial Goes Full DeFi—Borrows $7.5M USDT via Aave

In a move that’ll have crypto natives nodding and bankers sweating, World Liberty Financial just plugged into DeFi’s liquidity machine. The institutional player tapped Aave for a $7.5 million USDT loan—no suits, no paperwork, just smart contracts.

Why this matters: When legacy finance starts playing with DeFi lego blocks, it’s not adoption—it’s surrender. They’ve seen the yield and can’t unsee it.

The kicker? This isn’t some cautious toe-dip. $7.5 million screams ‘we’re here to play’—or maybe just ‘we’re tired of paying 8% on office coffee machines.’ Either way, the lines between TradFi and DeFi just got blurrier.

The increased activity on Aave has translated into milestones for the protocol in the past few days. It recently reached a new all-time high in total value locked (TVL) with $40 billion, while total borrows also reached a new peak above $16 billion.

WLFI USD1 supplies $2 billion in market cap, but growth slowed

Meanwhile, the recent transactions by WLF appear to be part of its efforts to boost the adoption of its USD1 stablecoin. The stablecoin, launched only a few weeks ago, is already one of the fastest-growing circulating supplies at around $2.18 billion, according to Defillama.

The massive volume growth is due mostly to a $2 billion investment by sovereign wealth fund MGX into Binance, which was conducted using USD1.  Beyond that massive surge, supply has grown much slower, with less than a $60 million increase over the last 30 days.

However, the project has also been making efforts to boost adoption through various means, including the decision to airdrop around $4 million USD1 to holders of WLFI tokens. This is part of its broader one-month campaign to boost the adoption of the BNB Smart Chain.

So far, BSC’s DeFi protocols, such as DWF Liquid Markets, Pancake Swap, ListaDAO, Venus Protocol, and Aster DEX, have all integrated the stablecoin into their platform, while exchanges such as MEXC are also offering 100% APR to stake USD1.

Trump’s family involvement driving WLF performance

Beyond its USD1 moves, WLF has also announced plans to acquire TRUMP memecoin for its treasury. The Trump Organization executive vice president, Eric Trump, announced the move, which WLF confirmed.

Interestingly, the project is also planning to launch a wallet. Donald Trump Jr. disclosed this while debunking recent claims of a Trump crypto wallet by Magic Eden. According to Trump Jr., the Trump Organization does not authorize the wallet to be promoted by Magic Eden because WLF is working on an official wallet.

With WLF dabbling in many crypto products and seeing sizable traction, many believe its success is only due to its affiliation with President Trump. Although Trump and his family are not directly involved in the operation of WLF, their influence as ambassadors appears to be the driving force behind it.

Unsurprisingly, this has meant increased criticisms of the family crypto affiliations by political opponents and even some members of the crypto community who believe the president’s pro-crypto moves have significantly benefited his private interests.

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