Two U.S. Presidents, Donald Trump, have partnered from his World Free Finance (WLFI) Crypto Venture, are accused of abandoning investors’ previous Decentralized Finance (DEFI) project that suffered $2.5 million in use nearly a year ago.
From exploitation agreement to Trump’s crypto partners
On Monday, Reuters reported that President Trump’s two business partners, Chase Herro and Zak Folkman, abandoned Defi Protocent Fonfer Finance customers after the platform was exploited.
Dough Finance, co-founded by Herro and Folkman, is an open source agreement to create non-monitored liquidity markets. Last year, the project suffered a flash loan attack, spending more than $2.55 million in USDC and Ethereum (ETH).
As Bitcoiners reported, on July 12, a hacker manipulated a smart contract for dough finance and stole users’ funds, leaving investors empty-handed. The team of the agreement sent an on-chain message to the exploiters and provided a white hat bounty if the funds were refunded.
By late July, cybersecurity company SEAL 911 had recovered only stolen crypto assets, worth about $281,000 worth of stolen crypto assets, and promised to be distributed to cryptocurrency investors.
But while the project’s official wallet allocates about $180,000 worth of ETH to 134 addresses in September, some investors reportedly told Reuters they have not received such payments.
In a media post, the Defi project apologized, acknowledging a code vulnerability that enabled the hacker attack. The team vowed: “We will continue to work to protect our users and their assets, learning from this event to enhance our safety posture.”
But two months after the agreement collapsed, the co-founder of dough finance appeared to have abandoned clients and launched their new crypto project, WLFI, along with President Trump and his three sons, Donald Jr., Eric and Barron.
Online reports have raised alarms after their new crypto risk announcement, as the language in the WLFI white paper is said to be “very similar” to the dough finances.
Dough Finance Customers Come Out empty-handed
Reuters stressed that Folklore and Herro allegedly promised not to stop “until everyone becomes complete” in the telegram channel with 2,700 dough financial users.
Still, the Defi protocol co-founder appears to be known for frequent online releases, reportedly stopping updates to the project’s telegram and X accounts after August 18 and deleting another telegram group.
Additionally, the project has been closed, with the total value (TVL) of the project at $1,689, according to DeFillama data.
Dough Finance's TVL by May 19, 2025. Source: DeFiLlama
The report notes that investors have sued Florida Herro for fraud, false statements, violations of financial duties and securities laws. The lawsuit, filed on January 27, 2025, argues that Jonathan Lopez, of dough finance client, invested nearly 300 ETH in the Defi project based on Herro’s representativeness.
Ten victims also spoke to the news media on anonymous condition, and a user four months ago last heard from dough finance starting January 13, when they promised “a solution this week” but never received any compensation.
According to Reuters, Herro and Folkman made at least $65 million from cutting WLFI revenue based on selling more than $550 million in tokens.
Ethereum's performance in the one-week chart. Source: ETHUSDT on TradingView
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