Trump-backed World Liberty Financial moves its sizable ETH and WBTC holdings to Coinbase
2025-02-04
Category: None

World Liberty Financial, the Trump-backed DeFi protocol, has moved nearly all of its ETH and wrapped bitcoin out of its treasury, according to blockchain movements. 
Beginning with three $12 test transactions about seven hours ago, the team appears to have moved its sizable ETH holdings to a Coinbase Prime deposit address. 
Its movements of WBTC have largely taken multiple hops, either passing through decentralized exchange CoW Swap or intermediary addresses before landing at a Coinbase hot wallet, according to Arkham Intelligence data. The team also appeared to have moved tens of millions of dollars worth of staked ETH, which was its third-largest holding mere hours ago.
It is unclear why the protocol has moved its ETH, which up until this morning comprised its largest treasury asset. Many projects typically send ETH to an exchange when they intend to sell. 
Curiously, the protocol appears to be receiving small amounts of ETH into its treasuries in dozens of low-value transactions — some as low as a few dollars — from what appear to be recently created or relatively inactive addresses that have transaction histories with exchanges like Binance, KuCoin and Upbit. 
ETH, the native asset of the Ethereum network, was one of the hardest hit cryptocurrencies by the recent market turmoil fomented by U.S. President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on several of the country’s closest trading partners. 
However, the token has ripped 50% upwards during a reversal this afternoon, and is now changing hands at over $2,800, according to The Block’s price page. 
“In my opinion, it's [sic] a great time to add ETH. You can thank me later,” Trump’s second son Eric posted on X at around 5:00 p.m. ET, amid the transfers to Coinbase. 
In a series of 13 transactions ranging from a high of $95 million worth of ETH to a low of $4 million, World Liberty offloaded all of its ether save for $82,000 worth of the asset. World Liberty’s total crypto holdings stand just north of $33 million, down over 90% from its $363 million multi-asset stockpile this morning. 
The project previously held over $175 million worth of ETH alone, making the token its largest holding by a long shot. World Liberty also appears to have moved its AAVE, ENA and LINK holdings, which accounted for about $30 million of its treasury holdings. The team sent these coins following a similar strategy of using several dozen different anonymous addresses as intermediaries before landing on Coinbase.
Notably, World Liberty does not appear to have moved its TRX position that it acquired after Justin Sun invested $30 million in the project (later raised to $75 million) and joined as an advisor. 
On Inauguration Day, World Liberty purchased $112.8 million worth of various crypto tokens, largely in blocks of $4.7 million or $47 million, to honor Trump being named the 47th president. 
World Liberty completed its token fundraise of $254 million on the day before Trump entered office — after a slow start to its WLFI token sale — and later decided to raise its investment target. On Monday, Blockworks published a report claiming World Liberty has been approaching blockchain projects about swapping protocol tokens for a fee, a claim the team denied. 
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