Crypto
Justin Sun
Justin Sun (Jiang Xin/Getty Images)
Here comes the sun

Largest $TRUMP holder buying $100 million more of the meme coin

Tron founder Justin Sun, who is also an adviser to Trump-connected World Liberty Financial, announced his plans on X.

Sage D. Young

Justin Sun — founder of the Tron blockchain, largest holder of trumpexpensive banana buyer, and adviser and investor of President Trump-backed crypto project World Liberty Financial — announced plans to purchase another $100 million worth of the sitting president’s namesake meme coin. 

Trump’s meme coin has jumped 4.5% in the last 24 hours, while the native cryptocurrency of the Tron network has remained flat. 

The announcement comes less than two months after Sun attended a dinner dedicated to $TRUMP meme coin whales.

Sun’s plans to acquire more $TRUMP is “plainly corruption,” says Carlos Mercado, an economist and architect of blockchain protocol True Freeze. “Buy $TRUMP and get access, and also get your SEC lawsuits closed up. It’s naked bribery and corruption,” Mercado told Sherwood News. 

In 2023, the SEC charged Sun and three of his companies for the unregistered sales of crypto asset securities and the fraudulent manipulation of TRX in secondary markets through wash trading. 

A few weeks after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Sun invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial, becoming “its largest investor” at the time, he posted on X. The crypto project would name Sun an adviser a day later. 

In January, Sun announced an additional $45 million investment in World Liberty Financial, while World Liberty purchased $2.6 million worth of TRX. The Trump-backed crypto project currently holds nearly 40.7 million TRX tokens, or about $12 million, making it the sixth-largest holder of TRX, on-chain data from blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence shows. 

In February, the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Sun jointly requested a federal judge to pause the agency’s regulatory actions “to allow the parties to explore a potential resolution.” 

Instead of a way to “buy favors,” Nicolai Søndergaard, a research analyst at crypto data firm Nansen, sees Sun’s further acquisition of $TRUMP as an “expensive networking event.”

“The minimum intention I infer is that Justin Sun and in extension TRON is positioning in a way that will benefit his/their existing bags and bets,” Søndergaard told Sherwood.

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Ethereum struggles to hold market gains

After rallying from $1,830 to above $2,100 on Wednesday, ethereum struggled to hold on to its gains and dipped under $2,000, a round psychological price level, on Thursday. 

The seesaw price action helped liquidate $146 million worth of leveraged long and short positions on ethereum in the last 24 hours, data from CoinGlass shows.  

While ethereum was due for a relief rally after entering into oversold conditions as measured by its relative strength index, some are still maintaining a bearish sentiment, according to Delphi Digital analyst Simon Shockey.

With ethereum now trading under $2,000, Shockey called the rally “unconvincing.” He told Sherwood News that he doesn’t “think most crypto natives are compelled to really believe the lows are in,” adding that he could see ethereum fall further from here and make new lows in the second half of the year. 

The price action comes as cofounder Vitalik Buterin has sold $35 million worth of ethereum tokens since the start of February and the paper loss for the largest ethereum treasury firm, BitMine Immersion Technologies, has climbed to nearly $7.9 billion

On the positive side, ethereum developers introduced a new road map that involves seven hard fork upgrades by 2029 and several north stars, one of which aims to make ethereum a “post quantum” layer 1 network.

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Crypto industry sees relief bounce in midst of winter

Crypto assets and crypto-adjacent companies are catching a bid and rebounding off recent lows, with stablecoin issuer Circle soaring after reporting strong earnings before the bell. The company beat on revenue and reported that USDC in circulation has grown to $75.3 billion, up 72% year over year.

The total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has increased 4.5% in the last 24 hours, and both tokens and companies close to crypto are enjoying a boost:

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Despite the relief bounce, some are still uneasy. “The whole market still seems very heavy to me,” Glenn Rosenberg, managing partner at Persistent Trading, told Sherwood News. “Jokingly, BTC feels like it’s now 100% correlated to any asset or news that’s negative! I think we test 60,000 — that’s a big long-term channel and could push lower from there,” he said. “The whole [space] looks risky right now.”

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