On Thursday (December 12), Bitcoin rebounded above $100,000, and Donald Trump's family-run decentralized finance (DeFi) project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) bought 1,325 Ether with 5 million USDC stablecoins, boosting overall cryptocurrency buying sentiment. Bloomberg analysts predict that MicroStrategy is likely to join the Nasdaq 100 index on December 23.
Trump Family 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 brought the project's total Ether balance to over $50 million, mainly purchased in the past few weeks.
About four hours ago, there were three independent trades with wallets 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 buy Ether, primarily through its large stablecoin holdings. This startup also seems to be sending funds directly from the WLFI contract address starting with 0xe217e15b to the wallet starting with 0x5be9a495, which has no outflow transactions.
The exchange of stablecoins for 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 dollar.
Notable Ethereum investor and advisor Eric Conner first noticed these trades and told The Block in a private message: 'They converted all the stables they got into Ether. The Trump family is clearly using these stables to buy Ether rather than just staying in stables.'
The terms and conditions of the WLFI project stipulate that the limited liability company set up 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. This includes over $50 million in Ether, $10 million in 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, a platform designed to find 'demand matches' between users to achieve the lowest possible execution price.
Wednesday's purchase was one of the largest trades for WLFI in recent weeks; the project also bought about 2,000 Ether using CoW Swap 9 days ago and nearly 3,000 Ether 12 days ago.
WLFI began selling tokens on October 15, a project announced by Eric Trump months ago in August.
According to Dune Analytics data, the team has sold WLFI tokens worth over $55 million, far from the $300 million expected to be raised by the DeFi project, which accepts ETH, USDC, and USDT in exchange for WLFI. In the U.S., this offering is limited to qualified investors, requiring an annual income of at least $200,000, or a combined annual income of $300,000 (for two years), or a net worth of at least $1 million.
Trump has been skeptical about 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 to his cabinet as the newly appointed 'Cryptocurrency Czar.'
He also stated that the global free loan platform will 'help the U.S. become the world's cryptocurrency capital.'
Bloomberg Analyst: MicroStrategy is likely to join the Nasdaq 100 index
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart stated: 'MicroStrategy could enter the Nasdaq 100 index on December 23, and we expect the ETF to subsequently net buy at least $2.1 billion worth of stocks, which is about 20% of MicroStrategy's daily trading volume.'
He continued to point out: 'However, due to a lack of profits, joining the S&P 500 will be more difficult, although changes in accounting rules around Bitcoin valuation may make MicroStrategy eligible by 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 surge in Bitcoin prices, on Monday, MicroStrategy purchased 21,550 Bitcoins at an average price of $98,783, investing $2.1 billion. As of now, MicroStrategy has acquired 21,550 Bitcoins at a price of about $98,783 each, totaling approximately $2.1 billion, achieving a year-to-date Bitcoin return of 43.2% 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 for approximately $25.6 billion, at about $60,324 per Bitcoin.'
Bitcoin Technical Analysis
Economies.com stated that Bitcoin's price has risen above $98,000, confirming the halt of the recently proposed bearish scenario and moving towards $104,060 as the next positive point.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin investors need to consider that a drop below $98,070 will halt the current rally and again subject the price to negative pressure.
