Trump’s Crypto Allies Leave Dough Investors High and Dry

Trump’s crypto partners, Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman, have left Dough investors with a giant loss after a $2.5 million hack, moving to World Liberty Financial with $65 million in gains, ignoring the Dough clients. 

In May 2024, Jonathan Lopez, an American writer and art historian, invested $1 million into Dough Finance, a cryptocurrency platform run by Herro and Folkman. 

The platform offered risky margin trading that could boost profits by borrowing to buy more crypto. Co-founder of Dough Finance, Chase Herro, has personally assisted Lopez. He charged Lopez a 5% fee on his $1 million crypto investment. 

Herro had encouraged Lopez to take significant risks to achieve substantial profits. However, on July 12, 2024, hackers had stolen $2.5 million from Dough, which included Lopez’s money too. This hack was possible because of a security weakness in the platform’s code that made it easy for hackers to break in. 

The platform admitted the mistake and promised to recover the funds for its users. But it got back only $281,000, leaving most of its 2,700 users, including Lopez, with major losses and little help. Jonathan Lopez is suing Chase Herro, claiming Herro lied and didn’t keep promises to repay him after a $2.5 million hack wiped out Lopez’s $1 million investment in Dough Finance. 

As per the reports, the lawsuit has been set for trial in April 2026 and accuses Herro of fraud. Meanwhile, Herro and his partner, Zak Folkman, moved on quickly, starting a new crypto project called World Liberty Financial (WLF) in September 2024 with Donald Trump and his sons, Don Jr., Eric, and Barron. 

They hold titles like “Chief Crypto Advocate” and “Web3 Ambassadors.” WLF, which offers a $TRUMP meme coin and a USD1 stablecoin, has made $400 million for the Trumps and $65 million for Herro and Folkman, while Dough’s website is shut down. 

Dough’s users, including an investor who lost their $12,000, stated that they had little contact with Herro or Folkman and got no real compensation. They also stated that they got worthless Dough tokens instead of the recovered funds.

The Dough Finance hack, where $2.5 million was stolen in July 2024, is part of $2.2 billion in crypto thefts that year. The hack has highlighted how risky decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms can be. These DeFi platforms, like Dough, often have new, untested code that hackers can manipulate easily. 

While Dough’s founders, Chase Herro and Zak Folkman, have moved on to a successful new project, World Liberty Financial, making millions, Dough’s users, who lost money in the hack, feel like they have been ignored and left with no real help. This scenario highlights a big gap between pushing new crypto ideas and taking responsibility for past mistakes. 
Recently, SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw at the SEC Speaks event warned about these weak regulations , which she called “regulatory Jenga.” She has further emphasized that such provisions could allow risky crypto ventures to continue unchecked, potentially leading to more problems.