$ONDO: The Altcoin Trump-Backed World Liberty Financial Is Betting Big On

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the DeFi project backed by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, is betting big on various cryptocurrencies, but over the weekend, its purchases of the ONDO token grabbed the attention of the crypto community.

Blockchain tracker Lookonchain was first to notice the purchases made by WLFI, revealing that the Trump-backed DeFi project spent 250,000 USDC stablecoins to snap up thousands of the crypto token.

On-chain data from leading blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence shows that as of early Monday, a wallet linked to WLFI has accumulated over 134,000 ONDO worth more than $273,000.

$ONDO Pumps After WLFI Buys

WLFI's purchase appears to have triggered a surge in the token's price, as the digital coin spiked above $2 and is up by nearly 14% in the last 24 hours.

The token also set an all-time high of $2.14 late Sunday, from a trading price of around $1.40 seven days earlier. It's been rallying by nearly 30% all week and is up on a 125% surge over the past month.

What is $ONDO?

Ondo Finance is a decentralized finance (DeFi) primitive that allows for risk-isolated, fixed yield loans backed by yield-generating cryptocurrencies, promising a focus on "quality before quantity, risk before returns, and putting clients first."

Notably, Ondo is a unique protocol as it is permissionless and allows interaction on a peer-to-pool basis that doesn't need intermediaries. Ondo Finance also offers tokenized U.S. Treasuries.

Ondo's executives are made up of finance experts whose resumés include the likes of investment giant BlackRock and even U.S. investment banking titan Goldman Sachs.

A Closer Look at the WLFI Wallet

Cryptocurrency users pushed ONDO to the social media platform's top trends Sunday night as they discussed the WLFI team's intentions for investing in the digital coin.

One user noted that it appears to be a "trend." ONDO is the WLFI wallet's eighth largest crypto holding while Ethereum (ETH) reigns supreme with holdings reaching $58 million.

The wallet has other altcoin holdings, including AAVE, Ethena (ENA) and Chainlink (LINK). It appears World Liberty Financial is investing in crypto tokens that aren't as big as Bitcoin but have a strong community around them and are on a steady, albeit slow, uptrend.

How About the Trump-linked Wallet?

Meanwhile, the wallet linked by Arkham to the incoming U.S. President continues to receive various cryptocurrencies. The wallet's total crypto holdings are worth over $13 million as of early Monday.

Trump promised during his campaign that he will support Bitcoin and the broader crypto space. He has since picked several cabinet members who are known to be pro-crypto and he also nominated crypto-leaning Paul Atkins to replace U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler.

The 47^th U.S. president actively promoted WLFI in the lead-up to the elections even as the project raised questions on code security, token whitelist requirements, and protocol revenue.