So there's this wild story that keeps getting wilder. Two months after their crypto platform got completely hacked and drained, Chase Herro and his partner Zak Folkman basically ghosted hundreds of investors who lost millions, then popped back up with a new project—this time backed by Trump and his three sons.

Let me back up. Herro and Folkman were running Dough Finance, which collapsed in July 2024 after getting hit by a hack that wiped out over $2.5 million. One investor, Jonathan Lopez, a 31-year-old from Miami, had put in $1 million in May. Herro personally walked him through risky strategies like looping—basically borrowing repeatedly against your crypto holdings. Herro's exact words to him were something like, "We get rewards for the risks we take." Then July 12 came and everything was gone.

After the hack, Herro texted Lopez saying "I said we'd take care of it" and promised the team would fix things. Folkman told the Telegram group they'd make everyone whole. But by August 18? Radio silence. Both founders vanished. Telegram abandoned. X accounts dead. Private chats deleted.

Here's where it gets interesting. While Dough investors were still waiting for answers, Chase Herro and Folkman were already building their next thing—World Liberty Financial. They got introduced to Trump, Don Jr., and Eric Trump through Steve Witkoff, and the Trump family jumped right in. Trump's calling himself "Chief Crypto Advocate." His sons are "Web3 Ambassadors." None of them said anything about the Dough situation.

The new project moved over $550 million in tokens. Chase Herro and Folkman pocketed at least $65 million. The Trump family got around $400 million. All that money flowing while Dough victims were still trying to figure out what happened to their investments.

In January 2025, Lopez sued Herro in federal court in Miami—fraud, misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, the whole thing. His lawyer said Lopez invested based on promises Herro made about safety. Herro's legal team responded by saying Lopez was a "sophisticated" investor who should've known better, and that the hack was beyond his control. Trial's scheduled for April 2026.

Here's the kicker: back before Dough fell apart, Herro literally called himself "the dirtbag of the internet" in a pitch to investors, saying "I do what's legal... besides that I don't give a fuck." Folkman's previous project was a dating advice site called "Date Hotter Girls." But somehow their partnership with Trump hasn't gotten much scrutiny.

Dough's website is basically a shell now. They said they recovered $281,000 with help from a security firm and promised payouts. But by September, only $180,000 had actually been sent to 134 wallets. Eight Dough users I've seen talk about it said they got nothing and have no idea how the selection process even worked.

The legal mess is getting complicated. Lawyers are saying most victims are filing negligence claims because they're easier to prove than fraud. And promises to "make users whole" don't actually mean anything legally without a formal agreement. Dough's disclaimers about their tech being "novel, experimental, and speculative" probably don't protect them from liability either.

And then January 20 came around. While Dough victims were still waiting for answers, Chase Herro and Folkman were in Washington DC at a black-tie inaugural ball celebrating Trump's return to the White House. The contrast is pretty hard to miss.