On Thursday (December 12), Bitcoin rebounded above $100,000, as the decentralized finance (DeFi) project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) under President-elect Donald Trump’s family bought 1,325 Ether with $5 million USDC stablecoin, 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: bought 1,325 Ether.
According to on-chain data, the WLFI project supported by Trump purchased $5 million worth of Ether on Wednesday. This brings the project's total Ether balance to over $50 million, mainly purchased in the past few weeks.
About four hours ago, three independent transactions were made with a wallet related to the Aave fork, receiving 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 be sending funds directly from the WLFI contract address starting with 0xe217e15b to the wallet starting with 0x5be9a495, without any outflow transactions.
Converting stablecoins to Ether indicates that the WLFI project is seeking deeper participation in the crypto economy, which may also suggest that the team believes Ether is a better reserve asset than the US dollar.
Prominent Ethereum investor and advisor Eric Conner first noticed these transactions, telling The Block in a private message: 'They converted all the stables they received into Ether, and the Trump family is clearly using these stables to exchange for Ether, rather than just staying in stables.'
The terms and conditions of the WLFI project stipulate that the limited liability company established by the Trump family to manage the project will receive 75% of the proceeds from the WLFI token sale 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 cryptocurrencies, including over $50 million worth of Ether, $10 million worth of Coinbase-wrapped Bitcoin token cbUSD, $8 million in USDC, and $3 million in USDT stablecoin, along with a small amount of various altcoins.
In its brief lifespan, WLFI has conducted 146 swaps using CoW Swap, which aims 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, and the project also purchased about 2,000 Ether using CoW Swap nine days ago and nearly 3,000 Ether twelve days ago.
WLFI began its token sale on October 15, a project announced months ago by Trump’s son Eric Trump in August.
According to Dune Analytics, the team has sold WLFI tokens worth over $55 million, far from the expected $300 million to be raised by the DeFi project, 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 income of $300,000 (for two years), or a net worth of at least $1 million.
Trump has been skeptical about Bitcoin but has strongly supported the cryptocurrency industry during his re-election campaign. 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 his newly appointed 'cryptocurrency czar.'
He also stated that the World Liberty Lending Platform will 'help the U.S. become the world capital of cryptocurrency.'
Bloomberg analysts: 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 subsequently net buy at least $2.1 billion in shares, equivalent to about 20% of MicroStrategy's daily trading volume.'
He continued to point out: 'But due to a lack of profits, joining the S&P 500 index 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%, making it the 40th largest holding in the index.
Despite the spike in Bitcoin prices, on Monday, MicroStrategy purchased 21,550 Bitcoin with $2.1 billion in funding at an average price of $98,783. As of now, MicroStrategy has acquired 21,550 Bitcoin at an approximate price of $98,783 each, achieving a quarterly return of 43.2% and a year-to-date return of 68.7%.
MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor stated: 'As of December 8, 2024, we have acquired 423,650 Bitcoin for about $25.6 billion, at approximately $60,324 each.'
Bitcoin Technical Analysis
Economies.com states that the price of Bitcoin has risen above $98,000, confirming a halt to the recently proposed bearish scenario and moving towards $104,060 as the next positive point.
At the same time, Bitcoin investors need to consider that if it falls below $98,070, the current uptrend will stop and the price will again be under negative pressure.
