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When real-world assets (RWAs) finally became the crypto industry’s narrative du jour, Sunny Lu, the founder and CEO of VeChain, could only smile.

“I mean, we were doing this back in 2017,” Lu told CoinDesk in an interview ahead of Consensus 2025 in Toronto. “Back then, no one cared about RWAs. »

Back then—eons in crypto years—some of the projects VeChain was involved with were a dairy traceability project in China, working with Walmart China on food safety, and tokenizing carbon credits in 2018 with BYD as it was transforming from a regional car brand to an up-and-coming global giant.

« We were ahead of our time,” Lu continued.

VeChain defined a category that TradFi giants like BlackRock are now building into their brand.

Now it’s time for the protocol’s next act.

At Consensus Toronto, Lu will deliver a keynote titled “Real Decentralization for Mass Adoption,” outlining VeChain’s new approach to scaling RWAs and blockchain use beyond the crypto-native crowd.

A roadmap that involves turning human behavior itself into a tokenizable asset and bridges crypto’s usability gap with AI agents and NFT-based staking.

Tokenizing human behavior

VeChain wants to turn everyday actions like recycling or driving an EV into something measurable and valuable on-chain.

By linking real-world behavior to blockchain rewards through tools like VeBetterDAO and Tesla integrations, it’s creating a new class of tokenized assets, making sustainability measurable and incentivized on-chain.

“We’re not just tokenizing big assets,” Lu said. “We’re tokenizing the invisible ones that didn’t have market value before.”

Lu calls this “tokenizing human behavior,” a concept VeChain first explored in 2019 as a prototype through its partnership with BYD, where it tracked EV mileage to generate carbon credits.

AI Agents for the Web 2 Crowd

But real-world value doesn’t matter if people can’t access it. Crypto remains intimidating for most users, and Lu believes AI is the answer.

VeChain is building an AI agent into its VeBetterDAO ecosystem, starting with a character named “BMO,” a virtual assistant that can guide users through staking, app interaction, and eventually optimize their token strategies across the VeChain network.

“People don’t want to memorize seed phrases,” said Lu. “They want a Tesla login or a Google ID. They want to click a button and participate. Our AI agent will help them do exactly that.”

VeChain’s upcoming integrations will allow users to log in with social credentials or even Tesla accounts. For example, EV charging data can flow automatically into smart contracts and generate carbon credit rewards without user intervention.

“We’re removing friction from every part of the stack,” Lu said. “It’s like moving from Linux command line to macOS.”

NFTs as Infrastructure

To enable broad protocol-level participation, VeChain is rethinking staking. Rather than requiring technical know-how or relying on centralized validators, users will soon be able to mint NFTs that represent their staked assets and delegate them directly to node operators.

“You don’t have to give up custody,” Lu said. “Block rewards go directly from the protocol to you, no middleman. It’s more secure, more compliant, and easier for the average user.”

This system, part of what Lu calls the VeChain Renaissance upgrade, aims to boost staking participation by lowering the technical barriers while preserving decentralization.

“This is real decentralization,” Lu said. “Everyone else talks about it. We’re building it.”

10-Year Anniversary

Lu’s keynote at Consensus in Toronto will mark a personal milestone: ten years since he first presented VeChain in New York back in 2015. This time, he’s coming with receipts and plans to showcase real traction from VeChain’s AI and sustainability initiatives.

Mugshot, a DeFi app that rewards users for reusing their coffee mugs and not buying disposable cups, is approaching one million users. Another project, EVEarn, which integrates Tesla’s API to automatically convert EV charging data into on-chain rewards, boasts a 98% retention rate.

“In Web3, that’s insane,” Lu said. “Almost every user keeps coming back every week. That tells you the experience is working.”

For Lu, the future of crypto won’t be won by hype cycles or flashy tokens. It will be earned through usability.

“The goal is mass adoption,” he said. “Real decentralization is the foundation. But adoption, that’s the destination.”

Imaginez un instant : vous êtes dans les 220 élus pour dîner avec Donald Trump. Vous recevez l’email. Votre cœur s’emballe. Black tie recommandé. Vous y serez. De l’autre côté, des milliers fulminent. Leur wallet a raté le cut. Pas de dîner. Le verdict est tombé. Le memecoin $TRUMP vient de livrer ses gagnants… et ses perdants. Dans l’univers crypto, cette compétition marque un tournant aussi spectaculaire que controversé.

L’article Gala, NFT… Trump transforme son memecoin en club fermé est apparu en premier sur Cointribune.

Fin avril, Donald Trump annonçait sa volonté de faire un diner avec les plus gros détenteurs de son memecoin TRUMP. En pratique, seuls les 220 plus gros détenteurs seront conviés à cet évènement. Sans surprise, cette annonce a engendré une importante hausse du cours, avec de nombreux internautes qui ont massivement acheté le jeton pour s’assurer une place à cet évènement. Désormais, la liste exacte des participants a été figée.

Les 220 plus gros détenteurs du TRUMP sont conviés le 22 mai

Lundi 12 mai, le compte X du memecoin TRUMP a annoncé la clôture du concours visant à définir la liste des 220 participants au dîner avec Donald Trump.

Ainsi, selon l’annonce, les 220 plus gros détenteurs du TRUMP sont invités à vérifier leur email afin d’obtenir les détails de l’évènement.

« Si vous étiez dans les 220 premiers du classement, vérifiez l’e-mail avec lequel vous vous êtes inscrit pour obtenir des détails sur le dîner avec le président Trump dès que possible. Des vérifications d’antécédents devront être effectuées avant que votre participation ne soit confirmée. »

En plus de cela, la publication annonce la création d’une collection exclusive de NFT. Chacun des 220 participants recevra son NFT exclusif peu de temps après le gala.

Mais ce n’est pas tout, les détenteurs qui ne vendront pas de jeton TRUMP jusqu’au 22 mai, date du gala, se verront aussi attribuer un NFT « TRUMP DIAMOND HAND » sur la blockchain Solana.

Le memecoin TRUMP annonce une campagne de points

Décidément, cette annonce est pleine de surprises. Pour finir, la publication annonce le début d’une campagne de points.

Ainsi, les détenteurs peuvent connecter leur wallet sur le site dédié et commencer à générer des points pour « ce qui est à venir ».

« Mais ce n’est pas tout… le début du PROGRAMME DE POINTS DE RÉCOMPENSE pour TRUMP commence MAINTENANT ! Connectez votre portefeuille pour commencer à gagner des points pour ce qui est à venir. »

Ainsi, il y a fort à parier que de nouvelles récompenses, peut-être sous la forme d’airdrop ou d’une nouvelle collection de NFT sont prévus.

De son côté, le jeton MELANIA, de la première dame des États-Unis fait débat. En effet, une poignée de traders ont sécurisé un profit de 100 millions de dollars. Toutefois, la précocité des achats laisse de nombreux observateurs sceptiques. Certains envisagent la possibilité d’un délit d’initié.

L’article Gala, NFT et potentiellement un airdrop : Le memecoin présidentiel TRUMP multiplie les annonces est apparu en premier sur Journal du Coin.

Animoca Brands, a Web3 investment company, is planning a public listing in New York, seeking to capture the « unique moment » offered by the Trump administration’s approach to digital asset regulation, executive chairman Yat Siu told the Financial Times.

An announcement on plans to list could be made soon, Yat Siu said in an interview, according to the Financial Times.

Under former President Joe Biden, the U.S. crypto regulatory landscape was littered with lawsuits and enforcement actions against prominent crypto companies such as crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken. These have been dropped this year in a signal of the more friendly approach to the digital asset industry by the Trump administration.

“If the U.S. didn’t do what they did with the regulators [under Biden], we probably would have competitors in the U.S., » Siu said. « It’s a unique moment in time. I feel like it would be one heck of a wasted opportunity if we didn’t at least try. »

The Hong Kong-based company has been a prominent investor in the Web3 industry for a number of years, having risen to prominence during the non-fungible token (NFT) boom of 2021. Its investments include blockchain game Axie Infinity, NFT marketplace OpenSea and Kraken.

Kraken is itself considering selling shares to the public for the first time in the U.S. next year.

Beyond investments in NFTs and GameFi projects, Animoca Brands’ most recent financial report showed a pivot towards its advisory service, which covers token advisory, tokenomics, marketing, listing advisory, node operation and trading services.

Animoca holds $293 million in cash and stablecoins, $538 million in digital assets, and $2.9 billion in off-balance-sheet token reserves on its balance sheet, according to its latest report.

The company did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for further comment.

The last time ICON (ICX) was making headlines, it was at the height of the ICO bubble when it was competing with Tron and Filecoin to buy BitTorrent in a high-profile bidding war.

ICON, once heralded as the “Korean Ethereum,” peaked early in 2018 but later struggled to retain relevance amid fierce competition and a changing narrative.

Now, ICON is back in the news, as it recently announced that it has rebranded to SODAX and is migrating its entire DeFi infrastructure from its own Layer-1 blockchain to Sonic, an EVM-compatible network focused on high-speed, low-cost transactions.

Sonic itself is a product of a rebrand, shifting from the name Fantom in 2024.

In an interview with CoinDesk, ICON founder Min Kim explained the logic behind shifting from running an independent blockchain to effectively outsourcing that part of the operation to Sonic’s Layer-1 infrastructure.

“Back in 2017, we had to build our own Layer-1 because there wasn’t any other infrastructure available,” Kim said. “Today, buying and maintaining your own Layer-1 property just doesn’t make sense anymore because there are cheaper, better options available.”

According to Kim, outsourcing infrastructure to Sonic allows his team to streamline expenses and sharpen their strategic focus on DeFi products.

“It significantly cuts our operating expenses by millions of dollars,” Kim told CoinDesk. “There’s less inflation for our tokens, and all of this just makes financial sense.”

This isn’t all that dissimilar from the manufacturing world. Foxconn and Taiwan Semiconductor are billion-dollar companies because firms like Apple and Nvidia don’t have their own factories.

Similarly, ICON no longer needs to bear the high fixed costs and risks associated with running an entire blockchain.

“Maintaining a decentralized network with validators around the world is a huge undertaking,” Kim explained. “We have eight years of experience running our own Layer-1. It’s tedious, costly, and very stressful. Outsourcing to Sonic allows us to focus on innovation and delivering products that people actually want.”

Kim also highlighted the risk reduction benefits, noting that ICON’s DeFi layer can remain unaffected by infrastructure issues at Sonic, creating a valuable risk separation.

“There’s de-risking,” he explained. “If Sonic gets hacked, obviously it’s bad, but it’s not directly our fault. Sonic focuses solely on security and validator infrastructure, so we and other DeFi builders can focus on creating applications closer to end-users.”

The strategy comes as ICON seeks to reinvent itself amid diminished market influence. Once a top 20 cryptocurrency, ICON’s ICX token crashed nearly 99% from its all-time highs by late 2018, and has since not recovered, according to CoinGecko data, as investors moved toward platforms better able to capitalize on the rise of DeFi and NFTs.

“Layer-1 infrastructure just doesn’t make sense for most projects,” Kim argued. “Many underestimated the effort, the capital expenses involved. There’s been a misguided premium investors placed on Layer-1 projects, thinking an ecosystem would naturally build itself. But that’s costly and rarely sustainable.”

Now rebranded as SODAX and focused on cross-chain liquidity products, the project is migrating ICX tokens to a new token, SODA. While Sonic and SODAX’s tokens remain distinct, Kim emphasized that Sonic’s fee-monetization mechanisms will channel transaction fees back to SODA holders.

“Sonic allows 90% of transaction fees to flow back to SODA token holders,” Kim noted, underscoring the economic incentive of their strategic pivot.

Asked if this outsourcing model represents a broader trend, Kim predicted that many projects currently running Layer-1s will likely reconsider as market cycles shift.

“Ethereum and Solana are great examples as they’re fully focused on validators and network security, » he said. « We’re at the forefront of reversing the trend of launching your own Layer-1s. It’s just not viable for most projects long-term.”

As the era of premium valuations for proprietary Layer-1 platforms ends, more projects, Kim said, are going to just focus on the product and not the infrastructure with ICON – now SODAX – leading the way on this.

“We’re going back to basics, lowering our costs, streamlining operations, and doubling down on what we originally wanted to do: put financial products directly into people’s hands.”

Le Far West de la cryptomonnaie. Deux adolescents de 16 ans originaires de Floride sont accusés d’avoir kidnappé un homme à Las Vegas et de lui avoir volé pour 4 millions de dollars de cryptomonnaies et de NFT. Les deux jeunes hommes, qui seront jugés comme des adultes, risquent jusqu’à 11 chefs d’accusation chacun pour cette affaire qui a secoué la communauté crypto. On fait le point dans cet article.

Deux adolescents kidnappent un homme pour lui voler ses cryptomonnaies

Selon les informations rapportées par la presse locale, les faits se sont déroulés en novembre dernier. La victime, un homme dont l’identité n’a pas été révélée, venait de participer à un événement lié à la cryptomonnaie à Las Vegas lorsqu’il a été abordé par les deux adolescents. Sous la menace d’une arme, ces derniers l’ont contraint à monter dans leur véhicule et l’ont emmené dans le désert de l’Arizona, à environ une heure de route de Las Vegas.

Sur place, les deux jeunes ont exigé que l’homme leur donne les mots de passe de ses comptes financiers. Craignant pour sa vie, la victime s’est exécutée et les adolescents ont pu transférer l’équivalent de 4 millions de dollars en cryptomonnaies et en NFT vers leurs propres portefeuilles numériques.

Après avoir obtenu ce qu’ils voulaient, les deux kidnappeurs ont abandonné leur victime dans le désert. L’homme a dû marcher pendant plusieurs kilomètres avant de trouver une station-service où il a pu appeler de l’aide.

Les deux adolescents risquent de lourdes peines de prison

Rapidement, les autorités ont réussi à identifier les deux adolescents grâce aux caméras de surveillance et aux témoignages de la victime. Ils ont été arrêtés dans le comté de Pasco, en Floride, et font face à 11 chefs d’accusation chacun, dont enlèvement, vol à main armée et fraude informatique.

Un troisième adolescent, également impliqué dans l’affaire, est toujours recherché par la police. Selon le procureur en charge du dossier, il ne serait plus sur le territoire américain.

Les deux jeunes hommes seront jugés comme des adultes en raison de la gravité des faits. Ils risquent plusieurs années de prison si ils sont reconnus coupables.

Cette affaire fait malheureusement écho à de nombreuses autres. Les attaques ciblant les « crypto-riches » semblent d’ailleurs en augmentation ces derniers mois. En janvier, le cofondateur de Ledger a été kidnappé en France et torturé par ses ravisseurs qui réclamaient une rançon en cryptomonnaie. Plus récemment, le père d’un millionnaire de la crypto a été enlevé en France, mais la police a heureusement réussi à arrêter les ravisseurs avant qu’ils ne puissent obtenir la rançon demandée.

Face à ces risques, il est important de rester discret sur ses avoirs en cryptomonnaie et de ne jamais partager ses clés privées ou ses mots de passe avec qui que ce soit. La prudence est mère de sureté.

L’article Cryptomonnaies : 4 millions de dollars volés par 2 adolescents en Floride est apparu en premier sur Journal du Coin.

La semaine du 05/05 en bref. L’actualité concernant Bitcoin et les cryptomonnaies est en ébullition constante. Il peut arriver que des informations capitales se perdant dans le flux informatif quotidien et que vous passiez à côté des points importants. Ce format est là pour y remédier. Nous revenons sur les actualités de la semaine passée dans l’Hebdo Crypto afin de vous tenir informés sur la situation actuelle des cryptomonnaies.

Le focus de la semaine

Cette semaine aura été marquée par un débat important sur Bitcoin. En effet, la communauté Bitcoin s’est divisée concernant la décision controversée des développeurs de Bitcoin Core de supprimer la limite de 80 octets pour la fonction OP_RETURN. Il s’agit d’un opcode qui permet d’enregistrer des données sur la blockchain Bitcoin.

Cette mesure, prévue dans la prochaine version du logiciel, bouleverse la tradition conservatrice du protocole et divise la communauté.

D’un côté, les partisans estiment que cette limite était devenue obsolète, car elle était déjà contournée grâce à Taproot et aux inscriptions Ordinals. Ainsi, sa suppression permettrait d’accueillir de nouveaux usages comme les NFT ou les contrats intelligents simplifiés. Selon eux, cela éviterait aussi que les utilisateurs ne polluent davantage le réseau en cherchant à stocker des données par d’autres moyens.

De l’autre, les opposants, comme le développeur Luke Dashjr, craignent un détournement de la mission première de Bitcoin, à savoir être un système de paiement. De plus, ils craignent un risque accru de spam et de centralisation. En effet, le stockage massif de données rendrait l’exploitation d’un nœud plus coûteuse.

Malgré ces débats, la décision finale revient aux mineurs, qui peuvent toujours fixer leurs propres limites. Ce changement met en lumière un conflit idéologique plus large entre les défenseurs d’un Bitcoin minimaliste et ceux qui souhaitent l’ouvrir à de nouveaux usages.

L’actualité crypto en bref

La sénatrice démocrate Elizabeth Warren questionne suite au deal d’Eric Trump aux Émirats arabes unis. En effet, celle-ci craint que les cryptomonnaies ne soient utilisées à des fins de corruption.

Solana évite le pire en corrigeant une faille critique. Ainsi, une faille sur les transferts anonymes aurait pu être exploitée pour minter à l’infini des jetons et même transférer des cryptos hors d’un wallet sans en avoir le contrôle.

Vitalik Buterin veut simplifier Ethereum en s’inspirant de Bitcoin. Ces simplifications affecteront aussi bien la couche consensus que la couche d’exécution d’Ethereum.

La Banque Centrale européenne souhaite améliorer la confidentialité du crypto-euro. Pour cela, elle a fait appel à COTI qui sera en charge de développer un système de paiements conditionnels.

Le projet de la famille Trump, World Liberty Financial en appel à sa communauté concernant l’airdrop de son USD1. Pour rappel, il s’agit du stablecoin lancé par le projet WLFI.

Le hard fork Pectra a été déployé avec succès sur Ethereum. Cela implique le doublement du nombre de blobs par bloc, une augmentation du maximum d’ETH en staking de 32 à 2 048 ETH ou encore l’introduction des transactions sponsorisées par des smart contracts.

Le retour du BTC au dessus des 100 000$ aurait-il marqué le retour des baleines crypto ?

Les 5 métriques de la semaine

➤ 1 895 BTC, il s’agit du nouvel achat réalisé par l’entreprise Strategy. Menée par Michael Saylor, celle-ci a entrepris une diversification de sa trésorerie en parallèle de la crise COVID-19. Désormais, l’entreprise détient pas moins de 555 450 BTC.

➤ 5,4 milliards de dollars, c’est le montant qui a afflué dans les ETF crypto depuis le début de l’année. Sans surprise, les ETF Bitcoin Spot aux USA arrivent en tête.

Entrées et sorties par semaine sur les ETF crypto.

➤ 4 milliards de dollars, il s’agit de la valorisation visée par eToro lors de son introduction en bourse aux USA. L’entreprise a connu une récente croissance grâce à son activité grandissante dans le domaine des cryptomonnaies.

➤ 100 millions de dollars, ce sont les profits réalisés par des traders sur le jeton MELANIA. Toutefois, les achats précoces de ces derniers alimentent les rumeurs de délit d’initié.

➤ 2,9 milliards de dollars, c’est le montant dépensé par Coinbase pour faire l’acquisition de Deribit. Ainsi, Coinbase vient de mettre la main sur une des plus grandes plateformes de trading de produits dérivés du marché des cryptomonnaies.

Bonne semaine sur le Journal du Coin !

L’article Les actualités Bitcoin et cryptomonnaies de la semaine – L’Hebdo Crypto #334 est apparu en premier sur Journal du Coin.

Lido Finance, Ethereum’s largest liquid staking platform by locked value, has introduced a proposal that grants staked ether (stETH) holders direct voting power alongside existing DAO tokenholders.

The upgrade, dubbed Lido Improvement Proposal (LIP) 28, outlines a dual governance system allowing stETH holders — those who stake ETH via Lido and receive a liquid token in return — to participate in a veto mechanism on key protocol decisions. Currently, only holders of LDO, Lido’s governance token, have a say in how the protocol evolves.

Under the new system, stETH holders could veto certain proposals approved by LDO tokenholders, though the veto would not enable them to push proposals through unilaterally.

The proposed system is framed as a mechanism to increase accountability and decentralization, especially as Lido continues to dominate Ethereum’s staking landscape. Over 25% of all ETH is staked on the network running through its infrastructure.

How it works

The Dual Governance system adds a special timelock contract between Lido DAO’s decisions and their execution, giving stETH holders a way to intervene if they strongly oppose a proposal.

The « dynamic » time lock is necessary because it is how on-chain governance technically works behind the scenes.

In the current system, decisions don’t take effect right away, as there is a set period before they’re executed. That gives users time to react if they don’t agree with certain changes.

However, Ethereum staking is different because one can’t quickly unstake or withdraw ETH, even with the current timelock. It takes time, liquidity is complex, and there is often a queue that could take several days to clear.

The new proposal wants to tackle that.

The proposed dynamic timelock assumes that, as enough users, who aren’t satisfied with a proposed change, deposit their stETH (or wrapped stETH and withdrawal of NFTs) into a designated escrow contract for withdrawal, the timelock duration begins to increase — this is called crossing the “first seal” (set at 1% of total Lido ETH staked).

If discontent continues and deposits cross the “second seal” threshold (10% of Lido’s ETH TVL), a « rage quit » is triggered: execution of the DAO’s decision is completely blocked until all protesting stakers have had the chance to withdraw their ETH.

This creates a sort of safety valve — allowing stakers to signal objection and exit — while still giving the DAO time to respond or cancel the contentious action.

The plan comes as Ethereum has surged more than 30% over the past week, riding momentum from its Pectra upgrade, which introduced execution-layer reforms to improve scalability and efficiency.

The rally has sparked renewed attention on Ethereum-native applications like Lido, which is critical in capital flow and validator participation across the chain — and directly impacts ETH market structure.

The LIP-28 proposal is still in its discussion phase, with a formal on-chain vote expected in the coming weeks.

If approved, the change could shift how governance is distributed across Ethereum’s staking ecosystem, setting a precedent for other DeFi protocols seeking to include users, not just tokenholders, in decision-making. Lido’s other competitors include Rocket Pool and Frax Ether.

LDO prices have risen 6.5% in the past 24 hours, while the CoinDesk 20 Index, a broader market gauge, climbed 2.5%.

Read more: Ethereum Activates ‘Pectra’ Upgrade, Raising Max Stake to 2,048 ETH

U.S. President Donald Trump has come a long way since he said the value of crypto was “based on thin air” in 2019. So much so that he is now one of the sector’s largest proponents, foraying into memecoins, DeFi, NFTs, and even stablecoins.

A new report by the State Democracy Defenders Fund estimates that Trump’s family has increased their net worth by $2.9 billion thanks to crypto, and that now 40% of that net worth is being held in crypto assets.

His deepening ties to the industry have reverberated across the political landscape, to the point that a broadly bipartisan stablecoin bill failed in a key vote Thursday after Democrats expressed concern about the extent to which he is profiting off the sector.

Trump’s support helped spark a continued bull market after his election victory in November, a market that’s been dominated by two trends: memecoins and institutional adoption of bitcoin via ETFs. While the latter is the province of, generally, institutional investors and providers, it’s the memecoin business that puts retail investors at risk and is potentially ripe for exploitation.

On Thursday, Solidus Labs claimed that 98% of memecoins issued on the token creation platform pump.fun were rug pulls or pump-and-dump schemes. The platform has since refuted the report’s claims.

Another analysis by Chainalysis, cited by CNBC, suggested that the vast majority of TRUMP token holders lost money.

A memecoin is a type of crypto token with no inherent value, often based, as the name suggests, on a meme or cartoon character. Popular examples of this are dogecoin (DOGE), shiba inu (SHIB) and pepe (PEPE). The craze reached a climax in January when Trump touted his own TRUMP token on social media, followed by MELANIA— named after his wife.

TRUMP, which hit a day-one peak of $77.26, is now trading at $10.80, down a whopping 86%. MELANIA slumped even further, losing more than 97% of its value in four months to trade recently at 33 cents.

The hype around Trump’s social media post led to a flurry of trading activity. Data from Chainalysis reveals that 760,000 wallets, mainly belonging to retail investors, lost money on the TRUMP token.

A small group of people, however, was immune to those losses. The Chainanalysis data show 58 wallets made profits in excess of $10 million. The token’s creators netted a whopping $320 million in trading fees, although it’s worth noting that around 5% of the fees went to the decentralized exchange Meteora, which hosted the launch.

MELANIA was allegedly scooped up by a group of insiders before it was advertised on social media in a technique known as “sniping.” This group of insiders made $100 million on MELANIA tokens by swapping tokens for USDC after its price doubled, according to an investigation by the Financial Times.

One insider with access to the tokens before they went live was Kelsier Ventures’ Hayden Davis, who revealed his involvement during an interview in February. Davis was also the brains behind the botched LIBRA stablecoin that brought political chaos to Argentina.

In an interview with Coffeezilla in February, Davis said: “This is going to put me in a lot of danger. Which is fine, I’ll answer. I was a part of it [MELANIA]. I think the team did want to snipe it because of how big the snipe was on TRUMP. We definitely weren’t the big sniper, that was what we were trying to avoid. We didn’t take any liquidity out, zero.”

Trump’s crypto network

Trump’s foray into crypto isn’t limited to memecoins.

The U.S. president’s family is also behind World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that raised around $590 million across two pre-sale rounds earlier this year. It raised funds at a time when the market was resting around all-time highs, so that figure of raised crypto is now much less. Arkham Intelligence data suggests that World Liberty Financial holds around $103 million worth of crypto.

Trump also attempted to ride the coattails of non-fungible token (NFT) hype in 2022, releasing a series of cartoons depicting the president as a superhero or a cartoon character. Trump made around $8 million from rolling out these NFTs, according to financial disclosures.

Most recently, there was the crypto dinner event, which saw Trump host a group of 25 TRUMP holders to a private dinner and tour of his Virginia golf club. A Bloomberg report reveals that 19 of those 25 holders were either foreign entities or used an offshore exchange banned in the U.S.

He’s set to host another dinner for the top 220 holders of his token later in May. U.S. Senators Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass. called for Trump’s impeachment, asking the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to investigate whether Trump violated federal ethics rules by inviting top investors.

The Trump family did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.

Read more: Donald Trump Denies Claims of Profiting From TRUMP Token

Il est rare qu’un projet NFT parvienne encore à créer un frisson authentique dans l’univers crypto. Et pourtant, Doodles vient de faire sensation. En 24 heures à peine, cette collection colorée a vu ses ventes grimper de 97 %, flirtant avec les 1,1 million de dollars. Une montée en puissance qui ne doit rien au hasard : à l’horizon, une certaine crypto DOOD fait saliver les investisseurs.

L’article Crypto : Les NFT Doodles explosent juste avant l’airdrop du token DOOD est apparu en premier sur Cointribune.