Morning Minute | Trump's WLF Buys Over $100M of BTC, ETH & Other Crypto

TylerD's Market Summary

💰 WLF Buys $47M of Bitcoin on Inauguration Day

Eric Trump teased a big announcement for Monday.

Many speculated on a potential strategic reserve announcement (no), or a memecoin launch (also no).

But then they delivered with what was likely about as bullish of an announcement as one could hope for.

What Happened?

World Liberty Financial, a DeFi platform linked to President Donald Trump, made headlines by adding $47 million in Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) to its treasury during his inauguration.

The DeFi platform acquired 439 WBTC through 10 transactions, swapping stablecoins worth $47 million.

This move makes Bitcoin the platform's third-largest holding, after Ethereum and USDC.

Over two days, World Liberty Financial added nearly $100 million in crypto assets, including $47M of Ethereum, and $4.7M of others including AAVE, LINK, TRX and ENA.

The purchases coincide with its public token sale which just completed on the back of the TRUMP memecoin launch, and the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th U.S. president.

What Are They Saying?

Donald Trump Jr. commented on the acquisitions: "To commemorate the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 47th President of the United States, $WLFI is proud to announce the following strategic purchases today: $47,000,000 ETH $47,000,000 wBTC $4,700,000 Aave $4,700,000 LINK $4,700,000 TRX $4,700,000 ENA Excited for the future ahead!"

In a prior statement, World Liberty Financial described the acquisitions as part of “regular treasury management,” adding, “We’re making routine movements of our crypto holdings as part of regular treasury management, and payment of fees and expenses and to address working capital requirements.”

Why It Matters

Politics and crypto are more intertwined than ever.

Whether that's a net positive or negative is a longer discussion.

But for the immediate future, it has to be seen as a positive.

Trump is hailed as the first pro-crypto president, and while no crypto executive orders were signed on day one, some are still expected for this week.

But pre-announcement, his family's protocol is stacking crypto majors.

At a minimum, this would make one think that crypto isn't going away anytime soon. It likely became a "safer" bet than ever before.

And they just laid out a playbook of what tokens to buy, if someone starting out had no clue.

The speculator in me also thinks they are telegraphing a potential reserve announcement coming as soon as this week, featuring Bitcoin and even Ethereum.

Jury still out on that one, but we will find out soon enough.

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH NFT leaders were green after a red weekend; Punks even at 38 ETH, Pudgy +4% at 19.9, BAYC -4% at 13.5 ETH, Azuki +1% at 11.7 ETH, Doodles +4% to 4.44 ETH
• GoPlus (+60%) and Creepz (+30%) led notable top movers
• Autoglyphs saw 2 sales at 123 ETH and 130 ETH, bringing the floor up to 175
• BTC NFT leaders were very green led by OMB; Bitcoin Puppets +10%, NodeMonkes +11%, OMB +25%, Quantum Cats +4%
• The Runes leaders were very green after Binance announced 3 futures listings; DOG +13% at $486M mc, PUPS +50% at $72M, BDC +54% at $42M, GIZMO +40% at $12M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Macro Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are red but up from a local bottom; BTC -3% at $103,800, ETH -2% at $3,300, SOL -8% at $238, XRP -6% at $3.09
• MNT (+13%), AAVE (+5%), & RAY (3%) led alts
• The Ethereum Foundation committed to using 50,000 ETH to participate in DeFi on Ethereum
• Trump picked Mark Uyeda as the interim SEC chair until a permanent chair is selected; Uyeda was critical of Genslers and the SEC's crypto approach under his guidance
• The WLF team bought over $100M in major crypto tokens including $47M each of Bitcoin and ETH
• El Salvador bought 11 more Bitcoin for its strategic reserve despite promising to slow down adoption
• Stablecoin supply has gone parabolic on Solana, surging over 50% in the past week to $9B+ with over $2B USDC minted in the past 3 days
• Utah proposed a bill for its own strategic digital assets reserve
• Memecoin majors are mostly red; DOGE +3%, SHIBA -1%, TRUMP -29%, PEPE -6%, PENGU -5%, BONK -13%, WIF -7%
• The new DOGE website went live at Doge.gov and features the dogecoin logo on the main page, leading to a 20% surge in DOGE from 0.34 to 0.4
• The WLF team secured ENS domains trumpcoin.eth, erictrump.eth and barrontrump.eth leading to speculation and new potential memecoins
• A ZACHXBT token briefly soared to $90M overnight after the team sent Zach tokens, which he proceeded to sell via liquidity pools for over $3M (token now down 90% to $9M)

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