Eric Trump Ousted from ALT5 Board Following Nasdaq Intervention—Crypto World Watches Closely

Nasdaq flexes regulatory muscle as Eric Trump gets the boot from ALT5's board—just another day in the wild west of crypto governance.

Behind the Scenes: The Exchange's Quiet Power Play

No drama, no spectacle—just a swift removal after closed-door talks with Nasdaq. The move signals heightened scrutiny on crypto-adjacent leadership, especially when big names draw bigger headlines.

Market Reactions: Silence Speaks Volumes

ALT5’s silence says it all. No press release, no defiant tweet—just the cold, hard update in the filings. Traders barely blinked; the real action’s always in the charts, not the boardrooms.

Bigger Picture: Compliance Trumps Everything

Even in crypto’s rebel ecosystem, traditional exchanges still call the shots. Nasdaq’s nudge proves that when legacy finance speaks, crypto companies listen—or get delisted.

One cynical take? Another crypto firm learns the hard way: you can’t decentralize regulatory oversight.

Zak Folkman takes Eric Trump’s place

Alt5 Sigma disclosed in an SEC filing that, after discussions with Nasdaq to comply with its listing rules, Folkman would be appointed as a director.

The SEC filing revealed, “Subject to and following the approval of the Company’s stockholders in accordance with Nasdaq’s listing rules, the Board has also approved the appointment of Zachary Folkman, the other nominee to the Board selected by WLF, as a director.”

In addition, Trump was listed instead as a board observer and subject to stockholder approval. However, despite the SEC filing stating Eric Trump is a board observer, Alt5 Sigma’s website still lists Eric Trump as a director on both its leadership and investor relations pages.

Also, the SEC filing revealed, “After discussion with The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (‘Nasdaq’), and in order to comply with Nasdaq’s listing rules, Zachary Witkoff has accepted his appointment as Chairman of the Board and is the initial nominee to the Board selected by WLF.”

This announcement follows  World Liberty Financial’s ambitious push into decentralized finance. The firm has amassed billions, tied up a massive $WLFI token supply, and promised investors a new kind of politically charged crypto ecosystem.

A Trump-affiliated LLC owns about 38% of WLFI and a staggering 22.5 billion tokens, giving the family huge influence and access to around 75% of token-sale proceeds. The WLFI token has already delivered strong early returns, trading at $0.2092. This is more than 4x above early prices. 

ALT5 acquired 7.3 billion tokens at $0.18 each. This means that the stake has appreciated by about $210 million in less than a month. Meanwhile, $WLFI is still down 30% from its highs.

$WLFI down 7%

WLFI, the governance token for World Liberty Financial rally, is tied to going live on Binance and MEXC, and its Solana-based stablecoin USD, going live on September 1, 2025, is threatening to come to an end.

BREAKING 🚨

Eric Trump REMOVED from the board of World Liberty Financial’s parent company “ALT5 Sigma” to comply with Nasdaq rules. $WLFI is dumping HARD following the news 🔻 pic.twitter.com/Hlm0SUagMG

— Karan Singh Arora (@thisisksa) September 9, 2025

The token has dropped from its pre-sale high of $0.33 to $0.1962, which has buyers talking. In the last 24 hours, the token has seen a decline of 6.92%. Now investors see this as an alarming sign after the announcement of Eric stepping down.

However, according to analysts, this might be a rare chance to get into the game. Investors are optimistic and say that WLFI could go from nothing to $1 in just 15 days. This is a more than fivefold increase, and even to $10 in three months if things happen like US rate cuts, institutional inflows, and the start of WLFI’s exchange.

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