Welcome to the Beluga Brief, where we deliver data-driven insights to your inbox every day of the week, spending our time in the crypto trenches and combing through thousands of crypto news feeds so you don’t have to.

What happened today?

The biggest news of today (and probably the rest of this week) is of course the launch of Donald Trump’s DeFi protocol as well as the ICO for its token tomorrow. The team aims to raise a whopping $300M from investors at a $1.5B fully diluted valuation (FDV), which in a better market would be possibly with Trump’s name value alone however with how coin launches and raises have been, I’m a little uncertain. To add to the questionable raise, the WLFI token itself will not be transferrable for 12 months meaning investors are locked in for this time period. I’m not sure how well this investment will go for the participants, however as part of their deal to use Aave’s services for their backend, 7% of the WLFI supply will go to the Aave DAO worth an estimated $105M.

This strategic partnership and grant has pushed $AAVE itself to rise about 20% to $162 this month, which happens to be a Beluga Trading Wallet holding that we purchased in August at $96. If Trump’s raise and project as a whole is successful, I expect a lot of money and attention flow into the DeFi sector far beyond the immediate benefit to the Aave protocol with the token supply grant. To add to this narrative, Uniswap’s native token $UNI saw some action after their announcement of the upcoming Unichain, an Ethereum L2 designed for DeFi. We have enough L2’s at this point that that news alone would not have been enough to significantly move the token price, however within the announcement was a detail that Unichain would offer a staking yield for $UNI tokens. It isn’t quite the fee switch people have been hoping for, however any kind of direct link between Uniswap’s success and token appreciation is good.

Biggest Headlines

The Beluga intern has been hard at work gathering all the most important crypto news stories so you have them in one place!

The Majors

• As BTC passes $66k, is ‘Uptober’ finally upon us?

• Ethereum ETF options listing stalls as SEC pushes deadline to December

Alt Coins

• Arbitrum DAO member proposes $120 million recall from gaming fund that missed deadlines

• Mysten Labs CEO Evan Cheng says Sui’s gaming device is a ‘software play’

Regulatory

• Vice President Kamala Harris vows to support a crypto regulatory framework in plan to support Black men

New Launches

• Hyperliquid users to get HYPE token in upcoming airdrop, says newly formed Hyper Foundation

• Trump-Backed World Liberty Financial whitelists 100k accredited investors ahead of WLFi launch

Miscellaneous

• Tether CEO says company exploring commodities trading and TradFi opportunities

Tweet of the Day

The current main character of the Memecoin world Murad on why he thinks the memecoin supercycle is starting:

Fun Fact of the Day

14 years ago today, this user asked the world if Bitcoin was safe enough to invest $1000 in. Today, this purchase (if he went through with it) would be worth about half a billion dollars.

The content on this site is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. While Beluga strives to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information, there may be discrepancies when comparing our data to that of financial institutions, service providers, or specific product websites. Always consult with a professional before making any financial decisions.

Will McKinnon is the Head of Content for Beluga and has spent every day for many years trading coins. For that reason there are too many to name, however his largest holdings by a significant margin are Ethereum and Bitcoin. NFA DYOR