{"entity":{"id":9127,"slug":"dough-finance","name":"Dough Finance","type":"company","role":"Defunct DeFi protocol","description":"DeFi lending protocol co-built by Herro and Folkman. Hacked for ~$2.1M in July 2024. Codebase formed technical foundation for World Liberty Financial.","imageUrl":null,"createdAt":"2026-04-15T20:40:43.904Z","updatedAt":"2026-05-19T09:25:07.670Z"},"electedOffice":null,"significance":{"score":8.4,"components":{"totalFindings":0,"connectionDegree":4.4,"recentFindings90d":0,"activeResearchJobs":0,"goblinAttributions":4,"recentSyntheses90d":0,"moneyFlowChainsTotal":0,"closedLoopMemberships":0,"moneyFlowHopsRecent90d":0},"computedAt":"2026-10-16T01:34:31.424Z"},"facts":[{"id":32958,"text":"On December 2, 2025, the court denied Herro's motion to compel arbitration but granted his motion to dismiss, setting a trial date for April 2026 in Miami federal court.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2025-12-02","source":{"title":"Jonathan Lopez v. Chase Herro — Order on Motion to Compel Arbitration / Motion to Dismiss","url":"https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10746310/jonathan-lopez-v-chase-herro/","publication":"CourtListener / U.S. District Court, S.D. Florida"}},{"id":32959,"text":"Herro and Folkman earned at least $65 million from World Liberty Financial's token sales through their entity Axiom Management Group, while Dough Finance users remained uncompensated. The Trump family earned approximately $400 million.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2025-05-15","source":{"title":"How Trump's crypto business partners left their old clients in the lurch","url":"https://www.reuters.com/business/how-trumps-crypto-business-partners-left-their-old-clients-lurch-2025-05-19/","publication":"Reuters"}},{"id":32957,"text":"Jonathan Lopez, a Miami-based investor who deposited $1M in ETH into Dough Finance in May 2024, filed a lawsuit against Chase Herro on January 27, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (Case No. 25-cv-20405-JB), alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, and violation of Florida securities laws.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2025-01-27","source":{"title":"Jonathan Lopez v. Chase Herro — Order on Motion to Compel Arbitration / Motion to Dismiss","url":"https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10746310/jonathan-lopez-v-chase-herro/","publication":"CourtListener / U.S. District Court, S.D. Florida"}},{"id":32954,"text":"Within two months of the hack, Herro and Folkman resurfaced as co-founders of World Liberty Financial with Donald Trump and his three sons. Herro became WLF's data and strategies lead; Folkman became head of operations.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2024-09-15","source":{"title":"CoinDesk: Inside the Trump Crypto Project","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/inside-the-trump-crypto-project-linked-to-a-2m-defi-hack-and-former-pick-up-artist","publication":null}},{"id":32953,"text":"In September 2024, approximately $180,000 worth of ETH was sent from a Dough account to 134 digital wallets. Eight Dough users told Reuters they received no repayment. Only ~$281K of ~$2.1−$2.5M stolen was recovered in total.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2024-09-15","source":{"title":"How Trump's crypto business partners left their old clients in the lurch","url":"https://www.reuters.com/business/how-trumps-crypto-business-partners-left-their-old-clients-lurch-2025-05-19/","publication":"Reuters"}},{"id":32955,"text":"World Liberty Financial's whitepaper described a credit account system built on Aave and Ethereum — strikingly similar to Dough Finance. A review of the since-deleted GitHub codebase showed early versions of WLF appeared to have lifted code directly from Dough Finance.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2024-09-03","source":{"title":"Donald Trump-backed DeFi protocol reportedly based on Dough Finance code","url":"https://www.theblock.co/post/314534/donald-trump-backed-defi-protocol-reportedly-based-on-dough-finance-code","publication":"The Block"}},{"id":32951,"text":"Co-founder Zachary Folkman promised on Telegram on July 12, 2024: 'We will not stop until everyone is made whole.' Chase Herro texted investor Jonathan Lopez: 'I said we'd take care of it.' Both founders abruptly stopped communicating by August 18, 2024 and deleted Telegram groups.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2024-08-18","source":{"title":"How Trump's crypto business partners left their old clients in the lurch","url":"https://www.reuters.com/business/how-trumps-crypto-business-partners-left-their-old-clients-lurch-2025-05-19/","publication":"Reuters"}},{"id":32952,"text":"In August 2024, Dough Finance announced it would issue proprietary DOUGH tokens equivalent to remaining missing funds, redeemable for ETH if additional assets were recovered. No further recoveries have been announced, and recipients described the tokens as 'worth nothing.'","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2024-08-15","source":{"title":"How Trump's crypto business partners left their old clients in the lurch","url":"https://www.reuters.com/business/how-trumps-crypto-business-partners-left-their-old-clients-lurch-2025-05-19/","publication":"Reuters"}},{"id":32950,"text":"Dough Finance published a post-mortem on Medium on July 23, 2024 acknowledging 'our mistake' in the code, stating approximately $281,000 had been recovered by counter-hacking firm SEAL 911, and promising pro-rata distribution to affected users.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2024-07-23","source":{"title":"How Trump's crypto business partners left their old clients in the lurch","url":"https://www.reuters.com/business/how-trumps-crypto-business-partners-left-their-old-clients-lurch-2025-05-19/","publication":"Reuters"}},{"id":32949,"text":"Cyvers security detected the attack in real time; the attacker used the Railgun privacy protocol to obfuscate fund origins, converted all stolen USDC to ETH, and deposited 600 ETH into Tornado Cash by July 13, 2024. Total loss estimated at ~$1.8−$2.5 million depending on source.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2024-07-13","source":{"title":"Cyvers Alerts Detects Suspicious Transactions Involving Dough Finance","url":"https://foresightnews.pro/en/article/detail/113840","publication":"Foresight News / Cyvers Alerts"}},{"id":32948,"text":"On July 12, 2024, Dough Finance was exploited for approximately $2.1 million via multiple flash loan transactions. The attacker exploited arbitrary call vulnerabilities in the Dough ConnectorDeleverageParaswap contracts to transfer WETH directly from vulnerable contracts. A white-hat hacker returned 69.12 ETH (~$260K).","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2024-07-12","source":{"title":"Dough Finance Incident Analysis","url":"https://www.certik.com/ko/blog/dough-finance-incident-analysis","publication":"CertiK"}},{"id":32947,"text":"Dough Finance was co-founded by Chase Herro (data and strategies) and Zachary Folkman (operations), with Octavian Lojnita (smart contracts) and pseudonymous developer 0xboga (front-end) also on the team.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":"2024-06-15","source":{"title":"CoinDesk: Inside the Trump Crypto Project","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/inside-the-trump-crypto-project-linked-to-a-2m-defi-hack-and-former-pick-up-artist","publication":null}},{"id":32961,"text":"Prior to Dough Finance, Folkman operated 'Date Hotter Girls LLC,' a pick-up-artist advice platform offering 'masterclasses' on how to 'Become the Ultimate Alpha Male.' Herro formerly operated a crypto trading firm called Pacer Capital and served prison time for drug-related charges.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":null,"source":{"title":"CoinDesk: Inside the Trump Crypto Project","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/inside-the-trump-crypto-project-linked-to-a-2m-defi-hack-and-former-pick-up-artist","publication":null}},{"id":32960,"text":"The Dough Finance website is now effectively shut down behind a password wall with virtually no assets — total value locked (TVL) of approximately $2,288 as tracked by DefiLlama.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":null,"source":{"title":"Dough Finance — DeFiLlama Protocol Dashboard","url":"https://defillama.com/protocol/dough-finance","publication":"DeFiLlama"}},{"id":32956,"text":"All four key Dough Finance team members — Herro, Folkman, Octavian Lojnita, and 0xboga — were listed on WLF's white paper as project leads. 0xboga is credited as an author in Dough Finance's on-chain source code at Etherscan address 0x9f54e8eaa9658316bb8006e03fff1cb191aafbe6.","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":null,"source":{"title":"CoinDesk: Inside the Trump Crypto Project","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/inside-the-trump-crypto-project-linked-to-a-2m-defi-hack-and-former-pick-up-artist","publication":null}},{"id":32946,"text":"Dough Finance was a DeFi lending protocol built on Ethereum and Aave, enabling non-custodial liquidity markets where users could supply and borrow assets, including high-risk 'looping' (leveraged borrowing).","confidence":"primary","dateOccurred":null,"source":{"title":"Dough Finance — DeFiLlama Protocol Dashboard","url":"https://defillama.com/protocol/dough-finance","publication":"DeFiLlama"}}],"connections":[{"id":9764,"relationshipType":"founder","description":"Co-built Dough Finance DeFi lending protocol with Folkman, Lojnita, and Purnavel. Hacked for ~$2.1M July 2024. Now inactive. Codebase and team formed technical foundation for World Liberty Financial.","confidence":"confirmed","firstDocumented":null,"lastDocumented":null,"other":{"id":918,"name":"Chase Herro","slug":"chase-herro","type":"person"}},{"id":12482,"relationshipType":"industry link (inferential)","description":"Andreessen Horowitz is a major investor in crypto and DeFi projects, and the Dough Finance/World Liberty Financial ecosystem operates in the same DeFi lending space that a16z has funded extensively.","confidence":"inferential","firstDocumented":"2024","lastDocumented":null,"other":{"id":120,"name":"Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)","slug":"andreessen-horowitz-a16z","type":"company"}},{"id":12479,"relationshipType":"associate via World Liberty Financial","description":"The Witkoff family (including Steve Witkoff, Zach Witkoff, and Alex Witkoff) are associated with World Liberty Financial, the successor project co-founded by Dough Finance's founders.","confidence":"inferential","firstDocumented":"2024","lastDocumented":null,"other":{"id":9125,"name":"Steve Witkoff","slug":"steve-witkoff","type":"person"}},{"id":12481,"relationshipType":"founder","description":"Co-founded World Liberty Financial alongside Dough Finance founders Herro and Folkman and Donald Trump.","confidence":"primary","firstDocumented":"2024","lastDocumented":null,"other":{"id":9124,"name":"Eric Trump","slug":"eric-trump","type":"person"}},{"id":12480,"relationshipType":"founder","description":"Co-founded World Liberty Financial alongside Dough Finance founders Herro and Folkman and Donald Trump.","confidence":"primary","firstDocumented":"2024","lastDocumented":null,"other":{"id":9123,"name":"Donald Trump Jr.","slug":"donald-trump-jr","type":"person"}},{"id":12478,"relationshipType":"founder","description":"Co-founded World Liberty Financial alongside Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman after the Dough Finance hack. The Trump family earned approximately $400 million from WLF token sales while Dough Finance users remained uncompensated.","confidence":"primary","firstDocumented":"2024","lastDocumented":null,"other":{"id":9122,"name":"Donald Trump","slug":"donald-trump","type":"person"}},{"id":12477,"relationshipType":"successor entity","description":"Within two months of the Dough Finance hack, Herro and Folkman resurfaced as co-founders of World Liberty Financial with Donald Trump and his sons. All four key Dough Finance team members were listed on WLF's whitepaper as project leads. Code from Dough Finance was lifted for early versions of WLF.","confidence":"primary","firstDocumented":"2024","lastDocumented":null,"other":{"id":37,"name":"World Liberty Financial","slug":"world-liberty-financial","type":"company"}},{"id":11367,"relationshipType":"affiliation","description":"Censorship-free competitor to Patreon/OnlyFans co-founded by Herro and Folkman, billed as a parallel venture to Dough Finance.","confidence":"primary","firstDocumented":null,"lastDocumented":null,"other":{"id":9130,"name":"Subify","slug":"subify","type":"company"}},{"id":11366,"relationshipType":"successor_vehicle","description":"Axiom Management Group (AMG) is a Puerto Rico LLC wholly owned by Herro and Folkman that receives 25% of World Liberty Financial's net protocol revenues — the same business partners who left Dough investors uncompensated.","confidence":"primary","firstDocumented":null,"lastDocumented":null,"other":{"id":9126,"name":"Axiom Management Group","slug":"axiom-management-group","type":"company"}},{"id":11365,"relationshipType":"founder","description":"Co-founder and head of operations for Dough Finance. Folkman posted on Telegram on July 12: 'We will not stop until everyone is made whole.' He previously operated Date Hotter Girls LLC and co-founded Subify.","confidence":"primary","firstDocumented":null,"lastDocumented":null,"other":{"id":917,"name":"Zachary Folkman","slug":"zachary-folkman","type":"person"}},{"id":11364,"relationshipType":"predecessor_business","description":"Before forming AMG and WLF, Herro and Folkman co-founded Dough Finance, a DeFi lending protocol that suffered a $2 million hack in mid-2024. Herro was subsequently sued for fraud and securities violations in January 2025.","confidence":"secondary","firstDocumented":null,"lastDocumented":null,"other":{"id":9126,"name":"Axiom Management Group","slug":"axiom-management-group","type":"company"}}],"contradictions":[],"permalink":"https://www.goblinhouse.net/entity/dough-finance","timelineUrl":"https://www.goblinhouse.net/entity/dough-finance/timeline"}