🪙Weekly Recap: Trump's WLFI Sale Falls Short Of Expectations

Happy weekend Defiers!

The token sale of World Liberty Financial, the upcoming DeFi protocol closely linked with Donald Trump, kicked off with more of a whimper than a bang.

The sale began on Oct. 15 and was immediately hampered by the project's website buckling under the surge in traffic. The project has raised just $13.2 million since, selling just 4.4% of the tokens allocated to the sale. World Liberty Financial is also facing renewed scrutiny after its whitepaper revealed a company linked with Trump can claim 75% of the project’s revenue, despite Trump not serving as an executive or employee of the project.

Crypto markets enjoyed bullish momentum, with Bitcoin ETF volume and open interest and posting record highs. Memecoins continue to capture the imagination of degen traders, with GOAT rocketing to a $500M market cap after garnering promotion from an AI agent backed by Marc Andreessen.

Election speculation is soaring to new all-time highs, with Polymarket hosting monthly volume of $1 billion for the first time with two weeks to go. Polymarket’s odds are significantly drifting in favor of Trump despite national polls giving a slight edge to Kamala Harris.

Vitalik Buterin is proposing significant changes to Ethereum, advocating for reducing minimum staking collateral for solo stakers to just 1 ETH. Buterin also outlined his vision for The Surge, which will span upgrades he believes can unlock throughput of more than 100,000 transactions per second.

SUI is still making headlines amid the token’s impressive rally. However, the Sui Foundation found itself denying claims that project insiders offloaded $400M worth of tokens into all-time high prices. Mysten Labs also launched the testnet deployment of Walrus Network, which aims to improve data storage in web3.

Fantom is enjoying a resurgence amid the run-up to its Sonic overhaul. FTM surged on the publication of the Sonic litepaper, while activity on the Fantom network soared over the past month.

The SEC appealed last year’s court verdict on its lawsuit against Ripple Labs. Notably, the SEC isn’t seeking to overturn the judge’s determination that XRP and other digital assets do not inherently comprise securities.

Base’s dominance over the Layer 2 sector keeps expanding, with Coinbase’s L2 now leading by both DeFi TVL and on-chain activity.

Plus, Solv brings Bitcoin liquid staking to Solana, Paradigm execs launch web3 development team, Christie’s announces digital art auction on Ethereum to support UNHCR, DTCC launches digital asset sandbox, and Grayscale files to convert multi-asset trust into an ETF.

Also, don’t forget to check out our podcast with Adeniyi Abiodun, the co-founder of Mysten Labs John Avlon.

Enjoy!

PODCAST & INTERVIEWS

Why Sui is Skyrocketing: Price Surge & Growing Ecosystem | Adeniyi Abiodun, Mysten Labs

In this week’s podcast, Cami Russo was joined by Adeniyi Abiodun, the co-founder of Mysten Labs and a major contributor to the Sui blockchain. I

The discussion explores Sui's mission to comprise a "global coordination layer for the internet," emphasizing its decentralized nature, parallel execution, and use of the Move programming language. Abiodun highlighted the expertise of the team behind Sui, their focus on scalability, Sui’s efforts to revolutionize payments and digital asset ownership, and SUI’s explosive rally. Abiodun also addresses challenges like decentralization concerns and outlines future growth areas, including gaming and DeFi.

MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes on Crypto, USDC, and the Future of Cross-Border Payments

The Defiant sat down with Alex Holmes, the chairman and CEO of MoneyGram.

Holmes dives into MoneyGram’s recent integration of crypto the USDC stablecoin into the company’s services to enhance cross-border transactions. Holmes discusses MoneyGram’s partnership with Stellar, which enabled interoperability between MoneyGram's traditional APIs and blockchain and allows users to send and receive USDC — which can then be converted into local fiat currency.

Alex highlights the challenges of adopting crypto, including regulatory hurdles, user education, and interoperability. He also mentions MoneyGram's non-custodial wallet service.

Web2.5: Where Banks Meet Blockchain — Plaid’s Vision for a Connected Financial Future | Amy Fisher

The Defiant spoke to Amy Fisher, the manager of fintech and crypto partnerships at Plaid, a financial infrastructure connecting more than 12,000 institutions. Plaid facilitates access to financial data for apps and services across traditional finance and digital assets.

Amy emphasizes Plaid’s focus on improving credit and identity verification to empower consumers with secure, accessible financial tools. She also underscores the importance of collaboration between Web 2 and Web 3 companies in order to drive innovation within the financial ecosystem.

Exposing a Meme Coin Trader's $24M Wallet

In this week’s episode of Crypto With Cami, we spoke to Seb Audet, the CEO and founder of Zapper, about ZachXBT’s controversial decision to dox the wallets of Murad Mahmudov, a former fund manager and outspoken memecoin advocate.

Friday

• Crypto Markets Rally as Bitcoin ETFs Surpass $20 Billion Milestone Dogecoin has soared 15% in the past 24 hours as Bitcoin approaches $69,000.
• Bittensor Launches Smart Contracts and Ethereum Compatibility The TAO token has more than doubled in the past month.
• New Ethereum dGEN1 Mobile Phone Enters the Crypto Smartphone Wars The device uses Ethereum as an operating system to allow for dApp interactions.
• World Network Launches Ethereum Layer 2 'World Chain' The World Network touts over 6.9 million verified users.
• Pump.Fun Metrics Shatter All-Time Highs Again Activity on the Solana launchpad is at new highs as the ‘memecoin supercycle’ carries on.
• TapiocaDAO Token Plunges 95% After Hack The project’s deployer was exploited through downloaded malware, according to Cyvers.
• Solv Launches Bitcoin Liquid Staking Token On Solana The token offers hedged exposure to liquidity provider positions on the Jupiter DEX aggregator.
• Polymarket U.S. Election Odds Diverge Sharply from Traditional Polls Some say it’s a gender issue, while others believe a single entity is skewing Polymarket.
• SEC’s Ripple Appeal Makes No Attempt To Classify XRP As A Security The SEC wants the court to reexamine XRP sales carried out by Ripple and its executives using exchanges.
• Polymarket Surpasses $1B Monthly Trading Volume, Driven by U.S. Election Betting The platform hosted record daily volume of $98.4 million on Oct. 7.
• Fantom Ecosystem Activity Picks Up Ahead of Sonic Labs Rebrand The Layer 1 network is enjoying a moderate resurgence as it prepares to rebrand.

Thursday

• Ethereum Layer 2 Shape Launches Mainnet with Notable NFT Artist Mints Popular NFT artists XCOPY, DeafBeef, and Deekay Motion have all launched collections on the chain.
• Vitalik Outlines Ethereum’s Road to 100,000 TPS Ethereum’s chief scientist laid out his vision for scaling the ecosystem beyond 100,000 transactions per second.
• Crypto Markets Consolidate as Traders Await Next Catalyst Bitcoin dipped 1%, while Ethereum is trending sideways.
• Sui’s Mysten Labs Launches Walrus Data Storage Network On Testnet Walrus aims to bolster the efficiency of data storage on Sui and other blockchain networks.
• Trump Company Can Claim 75% of World Liberty Financial Revenue A company affiliated with Trump has a right to claim three-quarters of the revenue generated by the WLFI token sale and the World Liberty Financial platform.
• No, The SEC Did Not Miss Its Deadline To Appeal Against Ripple Labs Despite multiple media outlets reporting that the SEC already missed a crucial filing deadline, the agency has until Oct. 18 to submit all necessary documents.

Wednesday

• GOAT Memecoin Soars Above $300 Million Valuation The token was endorsed by the “Sentient” AI bot, Terminal of Truths, and has led to an AI-adjacent memecoin frenzy.
• a16z’s Latest Report Shows Strong Ties Between Crypto and AI Users Key takeaways from the 2024 State of Crypto report include all-time highs for usage and ZK proofs proving to be the endgame for privacy and scaling.
• “Sinister” Operation Choke Point 2.0 Still Very Much Alive, Says Nic Carter The venture capitalist told The Defiant that there’s still an ongoing regulatory campaign targeting banks servicing the crypto industry.
• WisdomTree Integrates Debit Services with WTGXX RWA Fund Dubbed “Earn-Until-You-Spend,” the new feature allows debit account holders to use WTGXX holdings as a funding source.
• Italy Proposes 42% Capital Gains Tax on Bitcoin The move would hike the tax rate from 26%.
• Radiant Capital Exploited for Over $50 Million Users have been urged to revoke approvals for Radiant’s smart contracts amid a potential backdoor contract deployment.
• Bitcoin Rallies to $68,000 as Open Interest Hits Record High Dogecoin is up 10% as the crypto rally continues.
• Trump-Backed WLFI Token Sale Raises Just $12M In 24 Hours The WLFI token sale has attracted 10,885 unique wallet holders.
• Christie’s Announces Art Auction Supporting UNHCR On Ethereum A portion of the proceeds from the week-long auction will go to the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees.
• TON Taps Axelar For First Cross-Chain Interoperability Infrastructure Axelar’s Mobius Development Stack will connect TON with 68 different blockchain networks.
• Grayscale Files To Convert $520M Multi-Crypto Fund Into Spot ETF The fund notably holds SOL, XRP, and ADA.
• Base Overtakes Arbitrum By DeFi TVL DeFi protocols on Base now hold more than $2.57 billion worth of assets.

Tuesday

• New Bitcoin Block Explorer Feature Has Maxis Complaining Again Controversy erupted after mempool.space added a feature that allows users to know if a transaction includes a Rune.
• FTM Surges as Sonic Publishes Litepaper The litepaper disclosed details about Sonic’s mainnet launch and upcoming airdrop.
• Vitalik Proposes Fundamental Changes to Ethereum Ethereum’s chief scientist explored ideas to make the network faster and transactions cheaper, including reducing staking deposits.
• Trump’s World Liberty Financial Website Crashes Shortly Into Token Sale The website for the Trump family’s DeFi project has faced repeated interruptions and downtime since the sale went live earlier today.
• Crypto Markets Dip After Spot Bitcoin ETFs Record Massive Inflows U.S. Bitcoin ETFs attracted more than $550 million on Monday.
• Seemingly Pro-Crypto Harris Policy Doc Attracts Industry Pushback Onlookers took exception with the Harris campaign for failing to outline concrete policy proposals for crypto.
• DTCC Unveils Digital Asset Sandbox The DTCC's launchpad aims to provide a unified ecosystem for digital asset pilots targeting mainstream financial applications.
• Sui Foundation Denies Accusations Of Insider Token Sales SUI's price is up 108% in the past month.
• Bitcoin Miner Sues Local Council To Exhume 8,000 BTC Buried In Landfill James Howells threw away a hard drive containing the private keys to an 8,000 BTC stash in 2013.

Monday

• Bitcoin Breaks $65K as Short Traders Face Massive Liquidations More than $57 million in Bitcoin shorts were liquidated in the past 24 hours.
• Paradigm Execs Unveil Web3 Development Firm Ithica and Ethereum L2 Ithica’s Layer 2, Odyssey, is live on the Sepolia testnet and supports features included in Ethereum’s forthcoming Pectra upgrade.
• Morpho User Exploits Oracle Error To Turn $350 Into $230K The attack was enabled by a user misconfiguring the decimals places for PAXG relative to USDC.
• Hyper Foundation Teases New HYPE Token For Hyperliquid The date for the airdrop hasn’t been announced.
• Trump Announces World Liberty Financial Token Sale For Oct. 15 World Liberty Financial aims to sell 20% of WLFI's supply for $300 million.

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