Disclaimer: This is not financial or investment advice. You are responsible for any capital-related decisions you make, and only you are accountable for the results.

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From Skeptic to Crypto President

The world’s crypto president, Donald Trump has numerous crypto-related projects to his name. He and his family have been very vocal about the benefits of crypto over the last couple of years. This coincides with Trump-related entities launching multiple crypto projects. As someone who initially dismissed Bitcoin and crypto entirely, his story feels like watching someone slowly realise where the money is and step into it. Here is a rough timeline:

The Skeptic (2019–2021): In early days, Trump sounded like many traditional policymakers confronting a new, unruly technology. He dismissed Bitcoin and its peers as volatile, untrustworthy, and implicitly threatening to the dominance of the U.S. dollar.

By June 2021, the tone hardened: crypto was “a disaster waiting to happen.” At the time, this aligned with a broader institutional skepticism such as concerns about illicit finance, consumer protection, and systemic risk dominated the conversation.

The First Pivot (2022): Then came December 2022, and the release of the Trump Digital Trading Cards, an NFT collection. This was his first crypto endevour which sold out very quickly.

The Conversion Arc (2024-2026): Ahead of the US presidential elections Trump embraced the crypto industry entirely. His rhetoric change to:

• “Never sell your Bitcoin.”
• “Make America the crypto capital of the world.”

At the same time, more crypto projects started appearing around him. There was the WLFI token sale. Then memecoins linked to Trump and Melania in early 2025. By mid-2025, Trump’s rhetoric extended into regulations and policies. Numerous SEC investigations were closed, and there has been considerable progress in the regulatory framework including GENIUS Act and Clarity Act.

Trump’s shift from crypto skeptic to crypto champion may look, on the surface, like a win for the industry. But when you look at the projects tied to his name, a different pattern starts to emerge…

Support On the Surface, Extraction Underneath

The real price for this exposure has been quite significant for the crypto industry. At this point, it is no longer a secret that Trump-associated projects have largely been extracting value from the crypto market for years, rather than contributing to its long-term development.

We first saw this with the Digital Cards NFT project, which initially generated significant hype and retail participation, only to collapse by around 95% from its peak.

The exact same pattern has played out across several Trump-linked crypto ventures. At the height of the memecoin supercycle, the TRUMP memecoin surged to over $70B in market capitalization before falling roughly 96%. This was followed by MELANIA, which reached approximately $13B at its peak and has since declined by about 99.2%.

The Latest Drama

Now, Trump’s latest tool for making a buck appears to be World Liberty Financial (here's our first coverage of it). World Liberty Financial (WLFI) is a DeFi project launched in 2024. Donald Trump has been described as "Chief Crypto Advocate" or Co-Founder Emeritus, with his sons (Eric, Donald Jr., and Barron) listed as Web3 Ambassadors or co-founders.

Just like other Trump’s crypto projects, the token (WLFI) is already down around 75% from its all-time highs, but is still traded at around $2b in circulating mcap and over $8b in fully-diluted. Despite the massive valuation, the token's value accrual is weak (we would even say non-existent) because 100% of profits generated belong to Trump and Witkoff’s family, according to their whitepaper.

The problem for insiders, however, is that extracting value from a thin market is not straightforward. Selling directly would crush the chart and expose the weakness immediately. The ICO participants are locked to avoid selling pressure, while the number of 1 token holder (Justin Sun) was blacklisted. Moreover, the blacklist function was introduced after investors bought in. For insiders, to exit from such a position requires very careful manoeuvres because direct selling into the market would nuke the chart.

So What Did They Do Instead?

They supplied 5 billion of WLFI token into Deloimite, and borrowed around $75m in USD. As one of the X users put:

“It’s the financial equivalent of printing casino chips, borrowing cash against them, and telling everyone else not to panic because the house still believes in the chips.

It’s like printing Monopoly money, borrowing real dollars against it"

This avoids direct market selling from the team themselves, allowing them to extract dollars from the market. Whoever supplied USD to this market is at risk here because if the position isn’t properly liquidated they will incur something called a “bad debt” i.e, they won’t get their supplied money back in full.

If the tokens are liquidated though, this will drop the price, damaging all other holders. The team can get away with saying that they weren’t the ones selling. In either scenario, WLFI token likely continues trending to 0.

Cryptonary’s take

We have been in crypto for multiple cycles, and we have seen how value can be created, but also how it can be extracted.

The collapse of Terra Luna, which wiped out over $40 billion in wealth, led to real consequences for its founder. That system, while flawed, was at least transparent in its design. The risks were visible in the code, and some even argued it was a failure of design, not intent.

What we are seeing here feels different.

This is a 4th Trump related crypto project that is extracting billions from the crypto market. We are not sure how long the people involved will keep getting away with it. Not to mention all the insider trading happening on Polymarket in the Trump-driven headline economy.

At this point, it is becoming clear that Trump winning the elections was probably net negative for the industry. Many people associate crypto with Trump, and a series of extractions negatively shape how the entire industry is perceived…

As far as WLFI, it is likely to keep trending down, with community tokens locked while insiders slowly exit either via shorting perps or borrowing against collateral.

The main takeaway here would be, as an industry, we shouldn’t support such extractions anymore, and support actual projects that are trying to build value for the industry.

Peace!