I followed the chaos that turned into the governance proposal of World Liberty Financial this week, and honestly, it’s a case study on how not to manage community expectations.

Basically, the project announced a plan to unlock 62 billion WLFI tokens that have been locked since launch. This represents most of the total supply of 100 billion. Currently, only 24% is circulating, so you can imagine the size of the liquidity bomb that could come.

What caught attention was the justification: according to the team, they wanted to solve a governance problem because large token holders never vote. So they proposed a structured vesting schedule instead of the current infinite lockups.

But here’s where it gets interesting. The early investors get a two-year cliff followed by two years of linear vesting, with no burn. What about founders, advisors, and team members? There, yes, two years locked, three years of vesting, and an obligation to burn 10% of the tokens upon registration. Up to 4.5 billion WLFI permanently destroyed.

The detail nobody liked: all of this is optional. If you don’t accept the new schedule within a 10-day window after approval, your tokens simply remain locked indefinitely. Basically, either you accept the new terms or stay locked forever. It’s not exactly a choice.

The vote will be on Snapshot, requiring 1 billion WLFI quorum. Previous votes exceeded 11 billion, so it’s likely to pass.

Now, the context behind all this is that WLFI got into trouble. The project used billions of tokens as collateral to borrow stablecoins on the Dolomite protocol. This drew criticism over risk concentration and liquidity issues. The token also plummeted to all-time lows, reflecting market skepticism about the entire tokenomics.

And there’s more: Justin Sun, founder of Tron, publicly criticized the project, and the two nearly went to court. World Liberty Financial defended the lending strategy as a way to generate yield, but the crypto community didn’t buy the story.

The comment that best summarized the sentiment came from Ignas, a popular X profile with 158,000 followers: “So early investors unlock tokens when Trump’s cartel leaves office and WLFI is 99% down.” Basically, the community thinks insiders will profit while the base suffers losses.

Other critics were even harsher, calling this a “generational crime,” and some mentioned possible class actions.

The WLFI price is currently at $0.08, down 2.52% in the last 24 hours. With 24.67% of the supply in circulation and this vesting proposal under discussion, the market clearly isn’t confident.

The team responded that the commitment to long-term governance has never been clearer, but honestly, the proposal only raised more questions. If you work in crypto or follow project governance, this is an interesting case of how poor communication and misaligned incentive structures can quickly destroy trust.

The formal vote is expected to be released this week. How it will unfold is another story, but the community is already divided.