Although it is undeniable that President Donald Trump has been active with regard to cryptocurrencies since taking office, his engagement so far has, arguably, not been as many in the community had hoped.
Specifically, while many expected a swift and decisive move in the direction of creating a strategic Bitcoin (BTC) – or a different, ‘America-first’ – reserve, Trump and his family used the inauguration to launch multiple thematic meme coins.
Furthermore, while Finbold was examining on-chain data to determine the current state of the President’s cryptocurrency portfolio, we uncovered significant outflows of Ethereum (ETH) and wrapped Ethereum (wETH) from Trump’s personal crypto address.
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Indeed, Donald Trump’s ETH balance dropped from nearly 500 to just under 6 between January 22 and press time on February 6.
A closer examination uncovered that in the afternoon of January 23, the address identified as the President’s main cryptocurrency portfolio received about 513 Ethereum from another wallet associated with non-fungible token (NFT) proceeds.
Minutes later, more than 1,000 ETH was transferred either to an intermediary address or a centralized exchange reception wallet before being forwarded to a Coinbase Prime hot wallet.
The two transactions were executed within 10 minutes of one another as per Etherscan data, with the first likely being a test involving 1 ETH and the other constituting the main transfer of 1,004 ETH, minus the fee.
There’s a limit of traceability for most on-chain analysis when a cryptocurrency, ETH in this case, enters an exchange wallet like Coinbase Prime because of the pooling and mixing of assets.
At this point, Trump’s ETH is mixed with Coinbase Prime’s holdings, and its individual path becomes more difficult to track further unless there is a similar outbound transaction matching his deposit.
While no wrongdoing can be alleged based on the transactions alone, and the current state of the hot wallet Ethereum can’t be determined based on the on-chain data, the rapid rise and fall of the value of Trump family meme coins, paired with a February 3 Eric Trump X post saying ‘in my opinion, it’s a great time to add ETH,’ raises some uncomfortable questions.
WLFI urges the public not to speculate as it moves $300 million worth of crypto
Simultaneously, it is noteworthy that the on-chain insights platform Spot On Chain revealed on the evening of February 4 that World Liberty Financial – a company in which Donald Trump is listed as the ‘chief crypto advocate,’ Barron Trump as ‘DeFi visionary,’ and Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. as ‘Web3 ambassadors’ – is moving vast amounts of cryptocurrency.
Specifically, the firm transferred more than $300 million worth of 8 cryptocurrencies to Coinbase Prime mere hours before the X post was made. Along with Ethereum, Bitcoin is among the moved assets. Late on February 5, Eric Trump endorsed BTC in an X post that said: ‘Feels like a great time to enter BTC!’
The social media statement also featured a rocket – an emoji associated with the ‘to the moon’ meme – and also included a mention of World Liberty Financial.
Finally, despite the sequence of events raising uncomfortable questions, it is worth pointing out that the exact movement of the cryptocurrency and its state at press time is difficult to determine, and World Liberty issued a statement already on February 3 explaining that any observed transactions are ‘part of regular treasury management, and payment of fees and expenses and to address working capital requirement.’
The company also stressed that it is ‘not selling tokens’ and that it is ‘intended to be part of maintaining a strong, secure, and efficient treasury.’ World Liberty Financial also urged the public not to speculate.
Featured image via Shutterstock
