On Thursday (December 12), Bitcoin rebounded above $100,000. The decentralized finance (DeFi) project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) under the family of elected President Donald Trump purchased 1,325 Ether using 5 million USDC stablecoins, boosting overall cryptocurrency buying interest. Bloomberg analysts predict that MicroStrategy is expected to join the Nasdaq 100 index on December 23.
Trump family's WLFI project: purchased 1,325 Ether
According to on-chain data, the Trump-supported WLFI project purchased $5 million worth of Ether on Wednesday. This brings the project's total Ether balance to over $50 million, primarily purchased in recent weeks.
Approximately four hours ago, three independent transactions related to an Aave fork received 1,285 Ether from the popular decentralized exchange CoW Swap.
The wallet appears to be using profits from the ongoing WLFI token sale to purchase Ether, primarily through its large stablecoin holdings. The startup also seems to have sent funds directly from the WLFI contract address starting with 0xe217e15b to the wallet starting with 0x5be9a495, which has not had any outflow transactions.
Exchanging stablecoins for Ether indicates that the WLFI project is seeking to participate in a deeper level of the crypto economy, which may also suggest that the team considers Ether a better reserve asset than the dollar.
Noted Ethereum investor and advisor Eric Conner first noticed these transactions, telling The Block in a private message: "They converted all the stables they got into Ether; the Trump family is clearly using these stables to acquire Ether, rather than just staying in the stables."
The terms and conditions of the WLFI project state that the limited liability company established by the Trump family to manage the project will receive 75% of the WLFI token sale proceeds and can manage the funds as it sees fit.
Arkham Research data shows that the WLFI wallet starting with 0x5be9a495 holds nearly $73 million worth of cryptocurrency. This includes over $50 million in Ether, $10 million in Coinbase-wrapped Bitcoin token cbUSD, $8 million in USDC, and $3 million in USDT stablecoins, along with a small amount of various altcoins.
In its short lifespan, WLFI has conducted 146 swaps using CoW Swap, a platform designed to find 'demand coincidences' among users to find the lowest possible execution price.
Wednesday's purchase was one of the largest transactions for WLFI in recent weeks. The project also purchased about 2,000 Ether using CoW Swap nine days ago and nearly 3,000 Ether twelve days ago.
WLFI began selling tokens on October 15, months after Trump’s son Eric Trump announced the project in August.
According to Dune Analytics, the team has sold WLFI tokens worth over $55 million, far from the expected $300 million that the DeFi project aims to raise, which accepts ETH, USDC, and USDT in exchange for WLFI. In the U.S., this sale is limited to accredited investors, requiring an annual income of at least $200,000, or a spouse or partner's annual income of $300,000 (for two years), or a net worth of at least $1 million.
Trump has been skeptical of Bitcoin, but during his re-election campaign, he strongly supported the cryptocurrency industry. In addition to promising to fire SEC Chairman Gary Gensler on "day one" and reducing the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, Trump recently appointed podcast host David Sachs as the new "cryptocurrency czar" in his cabinet.
He also stated that the World Liberty Lending Platform will "help the U.S. become the world's cryptocurrency capital."
Bloomberg analyst: MicroStrategy is expected to join the Nasdaq 100 index
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart stated: "MicroStrategy may enter the Nasdaq 100 index on December 23, and we expect the ETF to net buy at least $2.1 billion worth of stocks, equivalent to about 20% of MicroStrategy's daily trading volume."
He continued to point out: "But due to the lack of profit, joining the S&P 500 will be more difficult, although changes in accounting rules around Bitcoin valuation may qualify MicroStrategy in 2025."
Another Bloomberg analyst, Eric Balchunas, also stated that the company's weight in the Nasdaq 100 index could be 0.46-0.47%, becoming the 40th largest holding in the index.
Despite the surge in Bitcoin prices, on Monday, MicroStrategy again invested $2.1 billion to purchase 21,550 Bitcoins at an average price of $98,783. To date, MicroStrategy has acquired 21,550 Bitcoins at about $98,783 each for approximately $2.1 billion, achieving a Bitcoin yield of 43.2% year-to-date and 68.7% since the beginning of the year.
MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor stated: "As of December 8, 2024, we acquired $423,650 worth of Bitcoin at approximately $25.6 billion, about $60,324 per Bitcoin."
Bitcoin technical analysis
Economies.com states that Bitcoin's price has risen above $98,000, confirming the cessation of the recently proposed bearish correction scenario, moving towards $104,060 as the next positive point.
At the same time, Bitcoin investors need to consider that falling below $98,070 will halt the current uptrend and again subject prices to negative pressure.
