News linked to both this project and an event.
According to an official announcement, Gate has launched a limited-time USD1 staking program offering high yields. During the campaign period, users holding USD1 in their asset accounts (minimum holding requirement: 1 USD1) can earn up to 20% annualized yield. The annualized yield rate is adjusted daily based on the remaining monthly reward budget and the platform’s total effective USD1 holdings. The updated annualized yield rate is published daily around 14:00 (UTC+8). The system takes hourly snapshots of users’ USD1 balances to calculate the average holding amount for yield calculation. Yields are distributed to users’ asset accounts the following day. According to the announcement, USD1 is a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial. It is fully collateralized by U.S. Treasury bills and cash equivalents, designed to maintain a stable 1:1 peg with the U.S. dollar. As a regulated, reserve-backed asset, USD1 delivers the same price stability as traditional cash—on-chain and in digital form.
Today, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee held a hearing with banking regulators, focusing on stablecoin rules and the banking license application of World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture associated with the U.S. President.During the hearing, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould stated that the only political pressure the agency has felt regarding the decision to grant a banking license to World Liberty Financial came from Democrats, and he rejected allegations that the agency was following the President's directives. Additionally, FDIC Chairman Travis Hill indicated that the agency will soon propose a rule requiring stablecoin issuers to implement customer identification procedures. (coindesk)
World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto project backed by the Trump family, stated that in light of recent updates to sanctions measures, the platform will continue to enforce risk-based sanctions compliance control mechanisms to fulfill legal and regulatory obligations in relevant jurisdictions.WLFI noted that transactions involving sanctioned individuals, entities, or related wallet addresses may be subject to enhanced scrutiny, rejection, restrictions, or other compliance measures. The platform reminds users that when transferring digital assets, they should ensure that the source of funds and original wallet addresses are not associated with sanctioned parties or prohibited activities.WLFI stated that if user transactions or accounts are affected during the compliance review process, its support team will assist users in completing the subsequent processing steps.
Bybit has officially launched its new “Hold USD1 to Earn Tokens” campaign. Users only need to complete Level 1 KYC verification and hold at least 1 USD1 in their Bybit account to share daily WLFI rewards—no subscription or lock-up required; rewards are earned simply by holding. The campaign begins on May 19, 2026, at 10:00 UTC. During the campaign period, users can earn up to a 20% annualized return and compete for a total reward pool of up to 45,000,000 WLFI—climbing the USD1 Holding Leaderboard. USD1 is a regulated stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, fully backed 1:1 by short-term U.S. Treasury securities and cash equivalents, and strictly pegged to the U.S. dollar. WLFI is the governance token of the World Liberty Financial ecosystem, enabling holders to participate in protocol governance and influence the ecosystem’s strategic direction. In this campaign, WLFI rewards will be distributed daily to USD1 holders on the Bybit platform. During the campaign, the system will take a snapshot of each user’s eligible USD1 balance once every hour—24 snapshots per day. WLFI rewards are expected to be credited to users’ main account funding wallets by approximately 06:00 UTC the following day.
According to The Block, Lee Reiners—a lecturer in law at Duke University and former examiner at the New York Federal Reserve—published a post on May 8 stating that WLFI, the governance token issued by the DeFi project World Liberty Financial—which is closely associated with the Trump family—may constitute an unregistered security. Reiners cited the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) recently released token classification framework, arguing that WLFI is not a “pure digital commodity” and therefore falls under SEC regulatory scrutiny. He contends that WLFI was publicly presold—approximately 25 billion tokens—prior to the protocol’s launch and was marketed leveraging the Trump family’s brand, leading buyers to reasonably expect profits—a key element of the SEC’s “Howey Test” for determining whether an asset qualifies as a security. Regarding decentralization claims, Reiners referenced litigation filed by Justin Sun, noting that World Liberty unilaterally froze Sun’s tokens and revoked his governance rights—revealing a high degree of centralized control. Additionally, he highlighted clear conflicts of interest: the project borrowed $75 million in stablecoins from the Dolomite protocol, using 5 billion WLFI tokens as collateral; notably, a co-founder of Dolomite also serves as an advisor to World Liberty, and part of the borrowed stablecoins flowed directly to World Liberty itself.
According to The Block, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand stated clearly on Wednesday at the Consensus Miami conference that she would not support the Cryptocurrency Market Structure Act unless it includes an ethics provision. She emphasized that members of Congress, the President, the Vice President, and senior executive branch officials must not profit from the industry by virtue of their insider status, bluntly declaring, “Without this provision, corruption will destroy this industry.” Previously, before the presidential inauguration, both Donald Trump and his wife launched meme coins. Their family-led DeFi and stablecoin project, World Liberty Financial, has also sparked widespread controversy. Bloomberg estimates that Trump has already earned at least $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency-related businesses.
According to The Block, Jaret Seiberg, Managing Director of the Washington Research Group at investment bank TD Cowen, stated that stablecoin yield issues are not the sole obstacle to the passage of the Clarity Act—and cited the following five additional hurdles: 1. A severe shortage of Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioners: only Chairman Michael Selig remains in office, and the process to appoint new commissioners could take several months, while the bill must complete its review by the end of July; 2. Complex regulatory questions surrounding prediction markets—including concerns about insider trading and potential conflicts of interest involving the Trump family—which may prompt Democratic lawmakers to withdraw their support via related amendments; 3. Ongoing controversy surrounding World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency project affiliated with the Trump family, increasing political resistance from Democrats toward supporting the bill; 4. Reports indicating Iran is discussing requiring vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to pay tolls in cryptocurrency—a development that could trigger contentious anti-money laundering (AML) amendments, potentially serving as a “poison pill” for the bill; 5. Risk that the Credit Card Competition Act could be attached to the Clarity Act, jeopardizing the entire bill’s progress. Regarding stablecoin yield issues, Senator Thom Tillis indicated that the Senate Banking Committee will not vote on the bill until as early as May. TD Cowen maintains its assessment that the bill has approximately a one-in-three chance of passing this year, while Galaxy Digital estimates the probability at roughly 50%.
Odaily News Investment bank TD Cowen stated that disagreements surrounding the "CLARITY Act" extend far beyond the issue of stablecoin revenue, with multiple practical obstacles potentially slowing down the legislative process.First, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is understaffed, currently with only one commissioner in office. Under these circumstances, Congress is unlikely to confidently assign more cryptocurrency regulatory responsibilities to the agency, and filling the personnel vacancies alone would require several months.Second, the issue of prediction markets is heating up. Whether to include them under the bill's regulatory scope, along with potential concerns about insider trading and political conflicts of interest (including controversies related to Trump-affiliated projects), could cause some Democratic lawmakers to oppose the bill.Simultaneously, the ongoing controversy surrounding the Trump family's crypto project, World Liberty Financial, is also increasing the bill's political sensitivity, making bipartisan consensus more difficult to achieve.Geopolitics has also become a variable. Discussions regarding Iran's potential use of cryptocurrency payments are intensifying focus on anti-money laundering provisions and could even lead to the introduction of amendments unfavorable to the industry.Furthermore, some lawmakers are attempting to incorporate the "Credit Card Competition Act" into the bill. If pursued, this could trigger new conflicts of interest, further impeding the overall legislative progress.
In his response, Witkoff clarified the following points one by one: First, WLFI has absolutely no connection with the TRUMP meme coin—these two should not be conflated. Second, WLFI is unrelated to “fight fight fight” or CIC Digital. Third, early WLFI holders purchased the token at prices of $0.015 and $0.05, respectively; its current price stands at $0.08. Fourth, WLFI’s core product is not transaction fees, but rather the stablecoin USD1, which generates yield by holding U.S. Treasury securities. By both trading volume and market capitalization, USD1 is currently the world’s second-largest compliant stablecoin.