Trump-backed World Liberty Financial is swapping stablecoins for ETH, onchain data shows

World Liberty Financial, the crypto project supported by President-elect Donald Trump, purchased $5 million worth of ETH on Wednesday, according to onchain data. This brings the project’s ETH balance up to a total of over $50 million worth of ETH, primarily purchased over the past several weeks.

A wallet associated with the Aave fork made three separate transactions approximately four hours ago to receive 1,285 ETH tokens from CoW Swap, a popular decentralized exchange. ETH is currently trading hands around $3,800, according to The Block’s price page.

The wallet appears to be purchasing this ETH using profits from the ongoing WLFI token sale, largely via its large stablecoin holdings. The startup also appears to be sending funds from the World Liberty contract address, beginning 0xe217e15b, directly to the wallet beginning 0x5be9a495, which has no outflowing transactions.

Swapping stablecoins for ETH signals that World Liberty Financial is looking to engage with the deeper crypto economy. It may also suggest the team thinks ETH is a better reserve asset than the U.S. dollar.

“Any stables they get they are flipping for ETH,” notable Ethereum investor and advisor Eric Conner, who first noticed the transactions, told The Block in a direct message.  “The Trumps are clearly swapping these stables for ETH instead of just sitting in stables.”

World Liberty’s terms and conditions say the limited liability company set up by the Trump family to manage the project will receive 75% of the proceeds from the sale of WLFI tokens and can manage the treasury as it sees fit.

According to Arkham Research, the 0x5be9a495 World Liberty wallet holds nearly $73 million worth of cryptocurrencies. This includes over $50 million worth of ETH, $10 million worth of Coinbase’s wrapped bitcoin token, cbUSD, as well as $8 million USDC and $3 million USDT stablecoins, among lesser amounts of various altcoins.

The project's largest altcoin holdings are about $1.5 million worth of AAVE, the native token for the eponymous lending platform, and over $1.1 million worth of Chainlink's LINK token. Both stockpiles were purchased late on Wednesday. These tokens are used to perform tasks, cast votes and earn staking rewards on their perspective platforms, adding to the idea that World Liberty may be dipping deeper down into DeFi. 

Over the course of its brief lifetime, World Liberty has made 146 swaps using CoW Swap, a platform that seeks to find a "coincidence of wants" between users to find the lowest possible execution price.

Wednesday's purchase represents one of World Liberty's largest transactions in recent weeks. The project also purchased around 2,000 ETH nine days ago and nearly 3,000 ETH 12 days ago using CoW Swap.

World Liberty began selling tokens on Oct. 15, a few months after Trump’s son Eric announced the project in August. The team has sold over $55 million worth of WLFI tokens, a far cry from the $300 million the DeFi project expected to raise, according to Dune Analytics.

The project accepts ETH, USDC and USDT in exchange for WLFI. The sale is limited in the U.S. to accredited investors with an annual income of at least $200,000 — or $300,000 with a spouse or partner — for two years or a net worth of at least $1 million.

Trump, a former bitcoin skeptic, came out heavily in favor of the crypto industry while campaigning for reelection. In addition to pledging to fire U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler (now a moot point) and free Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht “on day one,” Trump has recently hired podcaster David Sachs to serve in his cabinet as the newly created “Crypto Czar.”

He also said the World Liberty lending and borrowing platform will “help make America the crypto capital of the world."

Editor's note: Updates to include AAVE and LINK purchases made after publication.