World Liberty Financial to launch debit card 'very soon,' co-founder Zak Folkman says

World Liberty Financial plans to launch its own debit card "very soon," the project's co-founder Zak Folkman said during a fireside discussion at Korea Blockchain Week 2025's Impact conference in Seoul on Tuesday.

"[This] allows users to be able to attach their USD1 and their World Liberty Financial app right into their Apple Pay," Folkman said. "Not today, but it's coming very soon."

This debit card is expected to complement the project's upcoming retail application, which is also expected to launch in the near future. Folkman described the retail app as "Venmo meets Robinhood," combining traditional Web2-style peer-to-peer payment features with trading elements similar to those on Robinhood.

On the other hand, Folkman said World Liberty Financial will "never" launch its own chain.

"We will never put out a World Liberty Financial chain," Folkman said. "It's literally the opposite of our entire mentality when it comes to a stablecoin. We believe that our job is not to roll out chains or exchanges or anything like that, but to be completely agnostic when it comes to chains, technology, distribution platforms."

World Liberty Financial launched in September 2024 as a DeFi and crypto project, with backing from members of the Trump family. It has since launched its own cryptocurrency WLFI and its own stablecoin USD1, with the goal of becoming a bridge between traditional finance and on-chain markets.

WLFI token decline

While WLFI's token sale and launch drew significant attention, its price has fallen 37% since the token's official launch on Sept. 1. WLFI dropped 10.28% in the past day to trade at $0.21, according to The Block's crypto price page.

Folkman acknowledged that the token will continue to be impacted by market fluctuations, but said that he expects WLFI to rise in value in the long term as the project builds its product suite.

"The focus on building and developing and growing the product suite and USD1 and all of everything else that's coming out from World Liberty Financial," Folkman said at the fireside discussion.

"We're not in this to run a sprint, this truly is a marathon," Folkman added. "World Liberty Financial is not thinking in terms of months or even years. We're thinking in terms of decades and how we can build products that have staying power."

Meanwhile, World Liberty Financial announced Tuesday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Bithumb, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea. The two companies said they will collaborate on future business opportunities.