Eric Trump urges buying Ethereum

Eric Trump, son of the sitting US president, advised buying ETH. A day earlier the Trump family’s firm, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), had increased its exposure to the asset.

In my opinion, it’s a great time to add $ETH.

— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) February 3, 2025

“In my opinion, it’s a great time to add ETH,” the entrepreneur wrote.

His post came amid a sharp drop in crypto prices, triggered by Donald Trump’s comments on trade tariffs.

On February 3 Ethereum fell below $2,400, a three-month low. Over the next 24 hours it partly recovered and, at the time of writing, trades around $2,720. 

Is WLFI rebalancing its crypto portfolio?

According to Spot On Chain, on February 3 World Liberty Financial executed a series of large transactions in its crypto portfolio.

World Liberty Financial (@worldlibertyfi) moved $307.41M in 8 assets to #CoinbasePrime 6 hours ago—as part of treasury management and business operations.

Shortly after, the project unstaked 19,423 $stETH to $ETH and further spent 5M $USDC to buy 1,826 $ETH at $2,738.… https://t.co/Rp9NAFUs5N pic.twitter.com/5bfIvJma7U

— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) February 4, 2025

The company moved $307.41m in assets, including ETH and WBTC, to Coinbase’s custodial platform, then unstaked 19,423 stETH and spent 5m USDC to buy 1,826 ETH at $2,738.

Responding to questions about these operations, WLFI said they were routine portfolio procedures rather than preparation to sell tokens.

We’re making routine movements of our crypto holdings as part of regular treasury management, and payment of fees and expenses and to address working capital requirements. To be clear, we are not selling tokens—we are simply reallocating assets for ordinary business purposes.…

— WLFI (@worldlibertyfi) February 3, 2025

“To be clear: we are not selling tokens—we are simply reallocating assets for ordinary business purposes. These actions are intended to maintain a strong, secure and efficient treasury,” the company stressed.

As a result, the total value of crypto assets on WLFI’s own wallets fell by 90% — from $363m to $33m.

Scepticism in the community

According to Blockworks, World Liberty Financial “woos” crypto projects with proposals for reciprocal token purchases — an interested project pays at least $10m for WLFI’s unissued tokens and a 10% “fee”, while the Trump firm commits to buy its assets for the same amount.

The launch of WLFI is reportedly planned for the third quarter of 2025 with a $1.5bn FDV. No vesting of tokens is planned.

Movement Labs and TRON are said to be among those that agreed to the “investment swap” terms.

In late January the Trump company bought MOVE tokens worth about $2m. The purchase took place two hours before Movement’s official announcement that the network was open to developers.

There was also lively discussion of rumours about a possible connection to the newly created Committee of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk.

Movement Labs co-founder Rushi Manch denied direct ties with the Trump project. He stressed that the project did not give WLFI its tokens, and that the team had been posting “hints” about the network launch during the week preceding the official statement.

As for cooperation with Musk’s entity, Manch said he knew of nothing of the sort. According to him, there was no asset-swap agreement with WLFI either.

“There were no deals, no backroom operations. It was a normal market purchase,” the entrepreneur told CoinDesk.

A representative of the TRON team also denied the existence of a swap agreement.

At the time of writing, the World Liberty Financial portfolio shows $8.81m in TRX. Nearly all MOVE has been transferred to Coinbase Prime.

In November, TRON founder Justin Sun became the largest investor in World Liberty Financial.