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 trump, expensive 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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Payward, parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, puts plans for IPO on hold

Payward, crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company, has paused its plans for an initial public offering until market conditions improve, according to a report from CoinDesk that cited two people with knowledge of the matter. 

Since the firm announced in November its preparation for an IPO of its common stock, the total market capitalization of the crypto industry has shed around $652.2 billion, from $3.2 trillion to $2.5 trillion as of Wednesday, data from CoinGecko shows. 

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

Payward, parent of crypto exchange Kraken, has put its IPO plans on hold

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The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

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SEC and CFTC issue new guidance on how securities laws apply to crypto assets

On Tuesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, together with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, issued an interpretation clarifying how federal securities law applies to crypto assets, a first step toward developing a clearer regulatory framework. 

The interpretive guidance introduces a token taxonomy for different types of cryptocurrencies, with SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins adding that “most crypto assets are not themselves securities.”

Examples of a digital commodity, “a crypto asset that is intrinsically linked to and derives its value from the programmatic operation of a crypto system that is ‘functional,’” include:

The guidance also includes definitions of digital collectibles (such as NFTs), stablecoins, digital tools, and digital securities (such as tokenized real-world assets and stocks).

This is a monumental step in the mainstream adoption of the industry and clears a hurdle in how crypto can operate going forward, according to David Pakman, head of venture investments at CoinFund. “This will allow new token designs with the confidence that their existence does not require registration with the SEC, etc.,” Pakman told Sherwood News.

Despite the clarification efforts from the two organizations, the market capitalization of the crypto industry has dropped about 2% in the last 24 hours as each of the tokens mentioned in the guidance are trading lower in the period, data from CoinGecko shows.

The joint agency action also complements congressional efforts to turn a crypto market structure framework into law. With the goal of providing regulations on the offer and sale of digital commodities, the CLARITY Act passed the House of Representatives last year and is now sitting in the Senate.

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