Exciting news! We have officially added a daily edition to the Weekly Whale newsletter, and to go along with this we’ll be rebranding to “The Beluga Brief”. This means we’ll be able to 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?

Crypto Twitter is buzzing today after Donald Trump publicly announced his DeFi protocol “World Liberty Financial” will be launching on September 16th, which will coincide with a Twitter space that he plans to host with long-time Web3 media company Rug Radio. The former President has said that with World Liberty he plans to “embrace the future with crypto and leave the slow and outdated big banks behind,” however we don’t have a ton of details on how he will make that happen. There are also still questions around whether the token will be tradeable or not - either way, it will likely result in sucking a ton of the liquidity out from an already illiquid market, so I would expect to see some weakness in onchain trading during and after the launch.

As far as price action goes, relatively quiet day as Bitcoin climbed back over $58,000, a roughly 3% move. Despite what feels like an improvement in Ethereum sentiment for the first time in a long time, Ethereum ETF flows remain very small. Given the performance of the Base L2 for Coinbase as well as the start of a resurgence in Ethereum-based DeFi, I’m surprised it hasn’t found more demand for the brand new ETFs. On the meme side of the market, Elon continues to soft-shill Dogecoin to the word yet it isn’t having nearly the impact on the price that we saw with his mentions last cycle. This could be indicative of the market just caring less about what he shills, but maybe the market has less of an appetite for these old memecoins.

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

• How Bitcoin is becoming the $1.1tn crystal ball of the US elections

• ETH’s underperformance tied to current crypto market structure: Coinbase

Regulatory

• Federal Judge threatens Ryan Salame with sanctions after former FTX exec says he lied about Plea Deal last year

Alt Coins

• XRP rises as Grayscale offers trust for 7th biggest crypto token

• Treasure DAO proposal seeks migration from Arbitrum to ZKsync

New Launches

• Donald Trump announces launch date of World Liberty Financial

Miscellaneous

• Is Tether really more profitable than BlackRock?

• WeWork’s Adam Neumann refunds token holders of failed climate firm

Tweet of the Day

The Beluga Brief’s very first “Worst Tweet of the Day”:

Recent Beluga Content

With how well Base L2 has been performing, a lot of people have been asking whether they will launch a token. See our take here:

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