This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe . It’s probably safe to say that Donald Trump isn’t really signing transactions on Polygon and Ethereum himself. Still, those handling the crypto projects he’s linked to are doing their best to have Trump live up to his moniker: The First Onchain President. I’ve spent the morning compiling onchain data for Trump-linked crypto projects — his NFT collections (trading cards) and upcoming DeFi platform World Liberty Financial. The goal: Calculate the cumulative value of Trump’s onchain footprint. It was a quick analysis, but the data shows that Trump has so far raked in almost $84 million in crypto revenue in two years. Trump’s four NFT collections on Polygon have generated $7.7 million in crypto (WETH and POL fka MATIC). That revenue was derived from a mixture of primary sales and royalties on secondary sales. The first set of Trump NFTs went on sale two years ago almost to the day, in December 2022. (Note: The NFT collections have also brought in additional offchain revenue, as the project accepts fiat via credit card payments. Credit cards aren’t exactly onchain yet, so those sales have been left out of the totals above, although they could range in the millions.) NFT revenue and memecoin taxes are valued at current prices There’s also a suite of unofficial Trump memecoins that regularly pay a transfer tax to Trump wallets. Ultra small cap coins with names like “DT Inu” and “Take America Back” have gifted about $240,500 to Trump to date. The coins’ token contracts automatically forward small sums of USDC or ETH to Trump’s wallets every time they’re transferred, including when they’re traded on DEXs. This has resulted in sudden, short-lived bursts of additional crypto revenue for Trump’s onchain footprint. As for how much has been cashed out — whoever is handling Trump’s crypto has so far seemingly liquidated $3 million ETH on Coinbase. Trump’s address deposited 1,325.16 ETH to the exchange across November and December 2023, a sum that would’ve been worth $4.9 million if held until today. And then there’s the World Liberty Financial token sale. Which, until Tron founder Justin Sun aped in $30 million, appeared to run out of steam at just over $20 million. As of this morning, the WLFI offering has brought in over $75 million for the platform, with 80% ($61 million) of it coming in after Trump’s win in November, even if Sun was responsible for about half of that. It goes deeper: World Liberty’s wallet has also accumulated amounts of DeFi tokens AAVE, LINK, ENA and ONDO in the past week or so, altogether worth $5.2 million at current prices. The working theory is that World Liberty Financial is holding them as it is set to integrate with those protocols moving forward, especially in light of Ethena Labs’ newly-announced strategic partnership, as well as World Liberty’s Aave temp check for teaming up, made in October. Between all this and Trump’s spiritual purchase of a burger with bitcoin in the leadup to the election, it’s obvious that the President-elect is indeed deeper in crypto than any other Commander-in-Chief, and perhaps even any US politician. Still, it’s not without intrigue: World Liberty Financial just offloaded around $11 million in Coinbase’s wrapped bitcoin token cbBTC, while simultaneously picking up an equivalent amount of wBTC, as shown on the chart above by the purple and red shaded areas. Coinbase was recently locked in a brief legal battle with wBTC’s custodian, BiT Global, after the firm sued over the delisting of WBTC in light of Justin Sun’s reported affiliation. On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that Coinbase could delist WBTC without worry. Whatever World Liberty Financial’s reason for switching wrapped bitcoin tokens, it all tracks. After all, what would the first onchain President be without the traditional crypto drama? Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter . Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter . Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more. The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.
