Sentiment towards Ethereum (ETH) has fallen to depressed levels of late, but the crypto platform’s latest maneuver linked to President Donald Trump could raise hopes of a reversal.
World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform linked to the Trump family, deposited a total of 10,000 ether (ETH) worth $33 million on liquid staking platform Lido this week Finance (LDO) to stake and earn rewards, blockchain data from Arkham Intelligence showed. Lido is the largest ether staking platform with $31 billion in assets published on the platform.
The transactions came after World Liberty Finance acquired over $110 million worth of crypto assets including ETH, Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), Tron’s TRX, Ethena’s AAVE, LINK, and ENA, as reported by World Liberty Finance. reported CoinDesk.
The move raises hopes that regulators will soon allow staking for ETH spot exchange-traded funds. SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce, who now leads the agency’s crypto task force, said last month in an interview with Coinage that she was open to considering staking ETFs. Former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, known for his anti-crypto stance in the industry, resigned on January 20 with Trump taking office.
Staking would increase the appeal of investment products, allowing investors to earn a consistent stream of returns on their holdings and reduce product fees. US spot ETH ETFs together hold $12 billion in assets, according to SoSoValue data.
The possible regulatory approval could also drive up the price of ETH and adjacent ecosystem tokens like the Lido LDO. The future of Ethereum has come under scrutiny recently, amid falling prices compared to competitors, leadership conflicts, and concerns over the project’s development roadmap. ETH recently fell to a 4-year low against Bitcoin (BTC) and has ceded market share in trading activity to fast-growing blockchains like Solana.
“I will never trade ETH again after this, but watch how quickly sentiment changes when staked ETH ETFs arrive in the next few weeks,” said well-followed crypto trader Pentoshi.
“ETH will have a giga pump over several weeks at some point in 2025, around the ETF news staking… If [you’re] too long ETH, that’s when you give up and move to better performing assets,” said Alex Krüger, partner at Asgard Markets, in an article
