On February 23, the Trump-backed decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol World Liberty Financial reported that hackers had infiltrated its ecosystem, specifically targeting its primary stablecoin, USD1.
The coordinated attack comprised a three-pronged approach designed to depeg USD1 from the dollar, and profit from the same.
Using co-founders’ hacked social accounts, hackers posted falsified information to manufacture fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) in the platform’s ecosystem. Thereafter, the attackers reportedly paid off crypto influencers to amplify news of the attack, making it appear worse than it actually was. Attackers then proceed to short-sell WLFI tokens in the hopes of profiting from the artificial chaos.
WLFI stablecoin recovers shortly after FUD hit
World Liberty Financial explained that the attack failed “thanks to UDS1’s sound mint-and-redeem mechanism and full 1:1 backing.” The stablecoin experienced a temporary 0.6% deviation to $0.994 before quickly recovering close to the dollar. At press time, the stablecoin was trading at $0.9989, with an overall drop of 0.28% in the last 24h. WLFI token, ranked 29th by market cap, was trading at $0.1115 following a 0.7% 24h dip.
Source: CoinMarketCap
The DeFi platform is one among many that rely on a fully-reserved and fiat-backed mint-and-redeem stablecoin mechanism. Evidence of this is found in monthly reserve attestations, reserve composition reports, institutional partnerships, and its white paper dubbed the “Gold Paper”.
WLFI attack history and developments
Notably, this is the fourth attack aimed at the World Liberty Financial platform in the last two years. In July 2024, Dough Finance, a previous project related to the DeFi platform, lost $2.5 million to hackers. And in September 2025, “sweeper bots” exploited a vulnerability related to Ethereum’s EIP-7702 upgrade, draining wallets of millions in WLFI tokens. Two months later, a phishing campaign compromised user wallets, and the platform was forced to burn and re-allocate $22 million worth of stolen tokens.In more progressive developments, World Liberty Financial launched the World Liberty Forum, which aims to participate in shaping the cryptocurrency regulatory playground.
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