WLFI, the native token of the Trump family’s DeFi project World Liberty Financial, surged 29% to $0.158 in the last 24 hours, as the U.S. Senate advanced a bipartisan plan to end the longest government shutdown in history.
The WLFI tokens is currently trading 53.5% below its all-time high of $0.46, ranking as the 43rd-largest crypto with a $4.2 billion market cap, according to CoinGecko data.
The rally extended across the crypto market, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) climbing 3.6% and 4.8%, respectively, with BTC hovering around $106,000 after breaking below $100,000 last week.
An end in sight for the shutdown?
President Trump told reporters at a Sunday night football game that “it looks like we’re getting very close to the shutdown ending,” according to a POLITICO report.
The 60-40 Senate vote came after 40 days of federal paralysis and hours after Democrats agreed to support a package funding multiple agencies through the full fiscal year, with others funded until January 30, 2026.
The government shutdown began after Congress failed to pass a budget amid disputes over extending Affordable Care Act tax credits, furloughing nearly 900,000 federal workers and halting critical services from SNAP food aid to airport operations.
On Myriad, users put an 88% chance on the government shutdown ending before November 15, up from lower levels following the Senate vote.
(Disclaimer: Myriad is owned by Decrypt’s parent company, Dastan.)
Profit and politics
Nic Puckrin, crypto analyst and co-founder of The Coin Bureau, told Decrypt the WLFI surge points to more than just shutdown optimism.
A key driver behind the surge is “Trump’s announcement of a $2,000 ‘tariffs dividend’ handout to every American, which has naturally attracted attention to Trump-backed projects again,” Puckrin said.
Trump on Sunday floated giving Americans a $2,000 “dividend” funded by tariff revenues, posting on Truth Social that such payments would go to everyone except high-income earners.
However, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tempered expectations in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” with host George Stephanopoulos, stating that the “dividend” could be “just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda.”
Puckrin noted that WLFI’s jump points to “continued appetite for speculative, politically-linked tokens” amid upbeat sentiment, calling it “a momentum play” that could “fizzle out quickly.”
“The token’s still down 30% year-over-year,” said Ray Youssef, Co-Founder and CEO of crypto app NoOnes, who told Decrypt that expectations of a 3–4x rebound post-shutdown “seem justified,” though its links to the Trump administration “have raised eyebrows” in crypto circles.
Echoing the same concerns as the rest of the analysts, Dean Chen, an analyst at Bitunix, told Decrypt that WLFI’s surge reflects “brand, liquidity, and narrative more than fundamentals,” saying unless the DeFi project proves its stablecoin reserves and lands credible tokenization deals by 2026, the rally may fade as a short-term, politically driven spike.”
President Trump’s crypto empire has generated over $1 billion in profits, with his son Eric Trump confirming last month that the figure is “probably more.”
Democrats have raised ethics alarms over Trump’s crypto entanglements, pointing to his family’s DeFi project and a $2 billion UAE-linked deal, and the pardon of Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, as clear conflicts of interest.