The token fell 70%, the stock price fell 90%, and the only revenue-generating business is up for sale

Written by: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

According to The Wall Street Journal's report on July 7, World Liberty Financial (WLFI) treasury company AI Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: AIFC, formerly Alt5 Sigma) is negotiating with Tokyo blockchain company Perpetuals.com to sell its core payment business Alt5 Sigma Canada for up to 15 million USD.

Alt5 Sigma Canada generated approximately 25 million USD in revenue last year and is the only business under AI Financial that is still operating normally. The 15 million USD offer from Perpetuals.com includes a prepayment of 5 million USD in stock, with the remaining 10 million USD contingent upon achieving future revenue targets. The buyer will also assume some liabilities.

As a condition of the deal, Perpetuals.com has agreed to explore promoting WLFI's USD1 stablecoin in Europe and to license its trading technology to AI Financial.

If the deal goes through, AI Financial's asset composition will consist of no operating revenue, about 700 million USD in nominal value but mostly locked WLFI tokens, 10.5 million USD in cash (which is still being consumed), and a SEC warning about going concern.

But just 12 months ago, this company was called Alt5 Sigma, with a stock price of 9.76 USD, functioning as a normally operating Nasdaq-listed payment company.

1.46 billion USD token gamble

AI Financial was formerly Alt5 Sigma, a Nasdaq-listed fintech company primarily engaged in crypto payment gateway ALT5 Pay and digital asset over-the-counter trading platform ALT5 Prime, processing over 5 billion USD in cryptocurrency transactions, and was included in the Russell 3000E index in 2025. The company previously also had a biotechnology business (developing orphan drug JAN123 for chronic pain) that was planned to be spun off as an independent entity Alyea Therapeutics.

The company arrived at this point starting from a deal in August 2025.

On August 11, 2025, the Trump family's cryptocurrency project World Liberty Financial announced that it would acquire control of the then Nasdaq-listed payment company Alt5 Sigma via token payment, with a transaction price of 750 million USD in WLFI tokens.

Interestingly, AI Financial's chairman Zachary Witkoff also serves as co-founder and CEO of WLFI, while board member Zachary Folkman is also a co-founder of WLFI. There is a high degree of overlap at the board level between the buyer and seller.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Alt5 Sigma immediately issued additional shares to external investors at a price of 7.50 USD per share, raising an additional 750 million USD in cash, all of which was used to purchase more WLFI tokens. In total, this listed company spent about 1.46 billion USD to buy approximately 7.28 billion WLFI tokens, with an average price of about 0.20 USD.

Token fell 70%, stock price fell 90%, cash left only 10.5 million

However, WLFI tokens continued to decline in price after the transaction was completed. As of July 9, 2026, the token price was around 0.057 USD, a drop of about 70% from AI Financial's purchasing cost of 0.20 USD. The 7.28 billion tokens held by AI Financial had a book value shrink from 1.46 billion USD to about 706 million USD, resulting in a loss exceeding 750 million USD.

These tokens are also subject to strict lock-up restrictions, with 3.53 billion tokens non-transferable for 12 months, only allowed for collateral, staking, and lending; an additional 3.75 billion tokens require shareholder approval, amendment of articles, and resale registration to unlock. While AI Financial holds tokens with a nominal value of 700 million USD, the vast majority cannot be liquidated in the foreseeable future.

This has led to a comprehensive deterioration of AI Financial's financial data, with the company recording a net loss of 271.5 million USD in Q1 2026, of which 348.3 million USD came from unrealized losses on WLFI holdings. The company's cash balance is down to just 10.5 million USD.

On May 18, 2026, AI Financial formally issued a "substantial doubt about ability to continue as a going concern" warning in a filing with the SEC, stating that the company might not survive the year. The stock price fell from about 9.76 USD before the deal to about 0.55 USD, a drop of more than 90%, with a market capitalization of about 77 million USD.

The SEC filing also revealed significant deficiencies in internal controls, a restatement of financial data for 2024, and that the external asset management firm Kraken, responsible for managing the WLFI token position, did not renew the contract after 30 days, leaving the token position without external management.

Where did the 540 million USD go

The most critical cash flow in this transaction lies in the revenue-sharing structure of WLFI tokens. According to the WLFI token sales agreement, the Trump family is entitled to 75% of the net proceeds from token sales. When AI Financial purchased WLFI tokens for 750 million USD in cash (from funds raised by issuing additional shares to investors), this money flowed directly into WLFI's token sales revenue pool.

According to CNBC estimates, Trump-affiliated entities earned approximately 540 million USD from this.

Furthermore, according to a recent report by Bloomberg, US President Trump’s latest annual financial disclosure shows that in 2025 he profited at least 1.4 billion USD from cryptocurrency and meme coin-related ventures. Among these, his co-founded cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial generated over 594 million USD in sales; his meme coin business CIC Digital LLC earned 636 million USD in royalties through licensing agreements, holding at least 60 million USD in cryptocurrency in its digital wallet; additionally, he profited nearly 197 million USD from the equity sale of Stablecoin Holdco.

The disclosure document shows that cryptocurrency income is Trump's largest source of income to date. This income far exceeds the 77 million USD he earned from vacation-related income at Mar-a-Lago and the 25 million USD from his Northern Virginia golf club. The disclosure document lists over 680 pages of transaction records, including stock trades, which include shares of Amazon and Apple.

The story of AI Financial may not just be a random mistake of a company. In recent years, more and more listed companies have begun attempting to enhance their valuations through holding Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other cryptocurrencies, with the Strategy model being emulated by numerous companies.

However, for token assets that lack mature market pricing, have limited liquidity, and are subject to strict lock-up arrangements, massively converting a company's balance sheet into exposure to a single token, including liquidity behind the assets, governance structure, business cash flows, and transparency among stakeholders, is a high-leverage trust experiment.

A slight misstep could lead to a one-way street.