Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.
GM!
Today’s top news:
Crypto majors fall to new local lows, then rebound; BTC -3% at $76k
Vitalik says the original L2 vision no longer makes sense in lengthy X post
Y Combinator announces teams can receive $500k funding in USDC this spring
Circle announces a $30,000 hackathon solely for AI agents
Standard Chartered releases $2,000 SOL price target for 2030 based on micropayments domination
The President’s crypto ties once again have the broader industry’s legislative push in hot water.
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) accused President Trump of “brazen, open corruption,” alleging the UAE secretly funneled $187M to Trump family entities via World Liberty Financial just days before his inauguration, then received restricted AI chip access in return.
Senator Murphy alleged “potentially criminal conduct” tied to a $500M deal where UAE-backed Aryam Investment purchased 49% of World Liberty Financial four days before Trump took office.
Senator Warns of ‘Potentially Criminal Conduct’ Over UAE-World Liberty Financial Deal
Per WSJ reporting, roughly $187M flowed to Trump family entities and $31M to special envoy Steve Witkoff’s family, shortly before the administration greenlit expanded UAE access to advanced AI chips that Biden had restricted.
This all happened while the White House hosted a two-hour crypto summit Monday with Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken, Tether, Circle, and major banks to negotiate stablecoin yield provisions in the CLARITY Act.
No deal was reached, but the administration set a February deadline for compromise.
“That is corruption. Those are the elements of a bribe. This is potentially criminal conduct,” Murphy said on the Senate floor. He warned that “the rule of law is coming back” and that those involved “are going to jail.”
Trump told reporters Monday he was unaware of the investment: “I don’t know about it. My sons are handling that. My family is handling it, and I guess they get investments from different people.”
A World Liberty Financial spokesperson flatly denied any connection: “Any claim that this deal had anything to do with the Administration’s actions on chips is 100% false. The leftwing media is dishonestly pushing baseless innuendo.”