Sunday Review 26/01/2025
Taking two inhales and one long exhale slows your heart rate and leaves you feeling calmer.
Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday kicked off a new era for cryptocurrencies in the United States and abroad. If this week serves at all as an example of what’s to come, neurosis and pump-and-dump schemes are about to become prevalent in the crypto community.
Trump’s Inauguration Crypto Mayhem Recap
In the days leading up to Trump’s inauguration and on the big day itself, the crypto space moved at a frenetic pace. The volatility is far from over.
Eva Senzaj Pauram
The coming weeks will likely be calmer. After all, the President and First Lady of the United States can't go around launching meme coins every week - some say that not even the launch of $TRUMP and $MELANIA last weekend was legally possible.
Trump’s family DeFi project, World Liberty Financial, has bought sufficient crypto this week to become a significant player in the space in the times ahead, and with the purchase of ENS domain names related to the presidential family members, WLF has all the ingredients to keep us all very entertained in the near future.
Trump’s World Liberty Financial Secures ENS Domain Names
Are there yet more memecoins on the way?
Rebecca Denton
Ultimately, it didn’t take Trump to mention crypto in its inaugural speech for most token prices to skyrocket.
Solana, where the family’s tokens were launched, turned out to be the biggest winner. $SOL price hit an ATH of $293, and weekly volumes on the blockchain DEXes increased severalfold and broke a record by surpassing $35 billion - $4 billion is the usual average.
Solana Breaks Records Amid Trump’s Memecoins Mania
Solana’s DEXes hit record trading volumes as the network faces challenges with transaction failures.
Alexander Mardar
Dogecoin, which logo briefly appeared on the newly launched website of the government’s antibureaucracy agency Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to be headed by Elon Musk, performed okay-ish when compared with the other tokens on the space.
Legal Woes For Musk’s Government Efficiency Department
Multiple lawsuits target the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, for evading federal transparency guidelines. Meanwhile Doge coin logo appeared briefly on the newly launched landing page of the antibureaucracy agency.
Rebecca Denton
🔥 Highlights Of The Week
- Bitwise Asset Management has taken the first step towards launching a Dogecoin ETF;
- CZ has rebranded Binance Labs to YZi Labs, to reflect investments in AI and biotech;
- The Bitcoin presidents, Trump and Bukele, had their first official phone call; no BTC reserve was discussed.
Video of the week
— Ross Ulbricht (@RealRossU) January 24, 2025
In a video posted online, developer Ross Ulbricht effusively thanked President Donald Trump for granting him a “full and unconditional” pardon after eleven years in jail for crimes relating to the dark web marketplace Silk Road.
Ulbricht created and managed the website, which was one of the first websites to use Bitcoin as a means of payment, until his arrest in 2013.
The longstanding hero of the crypto community thanked all those who supported and kept fighting for his freedom while he was in jail.
Trump Pardons Ross Ulbricht, Founder of Silk Road
President Donald Trump has granted Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road and a Bitcoin pioneer, a full pardon, fulfilling a promise to correct what he calls a case of government overreach.
Rebecca Denton
📈 Crypto Markets
Trump’s inauguration has finally pushed the price of Bitcoin above the $100,000 mark.
As the asset matures and volatility decreases, small-scale retail investors are choosing to sell their BTC, with those on the buying end now being large institutional investors.
😈 Crypto Naught And Sloppy: Is “Memecoin” Synonym For “Rug Pull”?
It is becoming increasingly hard to tell a memecoin apart from a pump-and-dump scheme.
The week began with users blaming insiders of the $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens of rug pulling and went downhill with a couple more notable launches that turned out to be outright scams.
Promoted on the official X account of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the $CUBA coin soared to $30 million before all liquidity was suddenly removed and the promotional posts removed.
Other tokens connected to the country and one meme coin connected not with Cuba, the country, but with Mark Cuban, the investor, followed identical paths.
Rug Pull Rocks Crypto Community with Cuban Memecoins
A series of rapid-fire memecoin launches linked to the Cuban government end in a dramatic $30 million rug pull, leaving investors furious. Next day another “Cuban coin”, this time related to Mark Cuban’s meme coin announcement sparked meme coin investors’ interest.
Rebecca Denton
As sketchy launches become the norm, so do trust issues.
Even some of the most pristine reputations in the space are being tarnished by the launch of meme coin projects.
One of the white knights of the crypto industry, the on-chain detective ZachXBT, became the target of pump-and-dump accusations regarding a token launched by an anonymous user to provide financial support to the crypto sleuth.
The on-chain trace of the meme coin and of his transactions clears him of any wrongdoing. Instead, users' inability to trust anything except the charts gave the impression that a dump was happening, leading to en masse panic selling.
ZachXBT Meme-coin: A Tale Of Two Crypto Communities
Launching a meme-coin to fund the work of crypto sleuth ZachXBT has caused controversy that is hard to understand from either a technical or moral perspective but fairly easy to grasp when viewed through the lens of personal gain.
Eva Senzaj Pauram
Ethereum: What Is Going On?
Disgruntled investors and some developers launched a full-scale offensive on the Ethereum Foundation this week, which not even Vitalik Buterin was able to halt.
The week, which started with multiple calls on social media for a new EF leadership, culminated with the launch of several initiatives with a more pro-market outlook aiming to take the foundation’s current role in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Wen Moon? Ethereum Community Demands New Leadership
The weak price performance of ETH has led Ethereum users to more closely examine the Ethereum Foundation and its leadership, raising many questions.
Alexander Mardar
Tweet Of The Week
On one of the busiest weeks of crypto ever, the X account of the antivirus software pioneer, yoga guru, presidential candidate, and crypto enthusiast John McAfee, who died in a Spanish prison in 2021, was reactivated to promote a meme coin.
Hell, why not?
— Mark Milley’s Stylist 🇺🇸 (@Col_Crockett) January 23, 2025
Its been a slow week here
Here, a user replies to one of the recent posts of McAfee’s account by making fun of the timing of the resurrection.
🍭 Crypto Highs And Fun Times
- TON and Telegram have strengthened their bond with an exclusivity agreement that makes The Open Network the only blockchain for the deployment of the Mini Apps of Pavel Durov’s messaging platform.
Members Discussion