Locked Liberty
Trump-backed DeFi project World Liberty Financial has blacklisted an Ethereum wallet linked to Tron founder Justin Sun, freezing over 540M worth of unlocked WLFI tokens.
The address was flagged after sending 50M WLFI tokens, worth approximately $9M, to Sun’s HTX exchange.
As a core contributor of the project, World Liberty shared that Sun had agreed not to sell his tokens and had even set up a yield program for WLFI deposits on his HTX exchange.
Sun responded to earlier speculation of his role in the WLFI price dump, claiming that his particular address only executed a few test deposits onto exchanges, and did not involve any buying or selling.
Nansen’s AI research agent also suggested that the timing of the transactions did not line up with the order flows and price of action of WLFI at the time.
In Sun’s latest response, he has called upon the World Liberty team to unlock his tokens, arguing that freezing investor assets will undermine the project’s credibility.
Since launch, the price of WLFI has plummeted by 39.8% from $0.31 to $0.18 today.
Stable Tempo
Payment giant Stripe has teamed up with crypto investment firm Paradigm to unveil its upcoming stablecoin focused Layer-1 blockchain, Tempo.
Tempo is also being built with design input from prominent firms such as OpenAI, Visa and Shopify.
Tempo promises to be a “payments-first” blockchain with predictable low fees and gas fees payable in any stablecoin.
The network is currently in private testnet and there is no mention of a planned mainnet launch date.
Ondo deploys tokenized stocks
DeFi project Ondo Finance has launched its own tokenized stocks, consisting of over 100 different tickers and ETFs, on Ethereum.
However, the product, known as Ondo Global Finance, will only be available to non-US citizens.
In their latest announcement, Ondo clarified that each tokenized stock is fully backed, with the underlying assets held across one or several US-registered brokers.
Dividends obtained will be reinvested into the underlying asset, which will be reflected in the tokenized stock’s price.
Additionally, users will be able to mint or redeem these assets around the clock, as long as they are done outside of the US.
Unlike other tokenized stocks, Ondo offers inherited liquidity from the underlying equity markets, allowing traders to swap large amounts without having to create new pools or markets on-chain.
The team intends to release more tokenized stocks across more networks, such as BNB Chain, Solana and its own Ondo Chain.
Despite the announcement, Ondo’s native ONDO token has plunged by 4.6% from $0.97 to $0.93.
Taking con-TROLL
The TROLL memecoin team has secured an exclusive license to the Trollface IP after securing a six-figure deal with the original meme creator, Carlos Ramirez.
This means that the team is now legally allowed to use the original meme in its marketing images, branding, and merchandise.
In exchange, Ramirez will receive 11% royalties on net revenue earned from TROLL-related merchandise.
The price of the TROLL memecoin has risen over 25% from $0.16 to $0.20 on the news.
In Other News…
Old Timer on the Move. A Bitcoin whale has reawakened after 13 years, moving his massive stash of Bitcoin worth $52M. This move follows the current trend of Bitcoin whales returning to the market, with most realizing their profits and exiting the market.
Kraken Exchange Acquires Breakout. US crypto exchange Kraken has acquired proprietary trading platform Breakout to support leveraged Bitcoin trading functions. Kraken currently expects to go public by 2026.
Neck and Neck in Solana Treasuries. Solana treasury firm DeFi Development Corp (DFDV) has acquired another $39M worth of SOL, their total holdings are now worth over $400M. DFDV is now a close contender to become the largest Solana treasury firm against Upexi, who also holds close to $400M in SOL.
South Korea Caps Crypto Lending Rates at 20%. South Korea’s Financial Services Commission has published new crypto guidelines, limiting lending services at centralized exchanges to the top 20 crypto by market capitalization as well as capping the maximum interest rate at 20%.
Gotta Catch Em All. Tokenized Pokémon cards are seeing renewed interest after the success of the recently debuted CARDS token for a Solana-based card trading RWA crypto project, Collector Crypt. CARDS jumped to a peak market capitalization of $85M from $23M.
Uniswap Creating New Legal Entity. The Uniswap community is voting on a proposal to create a new legal entity in the US state of Wyoming called DUNI. DUNI will support Uniswap’s offchain operations while still maintaining a decentralized governance structure.
India Leads in Crypto Adoption. A recent Chainalysis report revealed that the leading nations for crypto adoption are the US and India. The report showed that the Asia Pacific region (APAC) was the fastest growing region for crypto adoption.
SUI Treasury Tops $300M. The Nasdaq-listed Sui Group Holdings revealed that their holdings of the SUI L1 token exceeded $300M. The firm plans to raise more funds to purchase more SUI.
The Door to Altseason is Here. Bitcoin dominance has slipped down from its peak of 62% to 55% while ETH and SOL showed signs of renewed interest. Market movements suggest that this may be early signs of an altcoin rotation.