Policy Tailwinds and Bewilderment Behavior run in parallel, is Trump a true Crypto Builder or a larger Scythe?

By: blockbeats|2025/02/06 09:30:04
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Ever since former President Trump and his wife launched their own meme coins $Trump and $MELANIA, attracting a huge amount of funds, the cryptocurrency market has quickly fallen into a liquidity crisis. On the other hand, the impact of the domestic AI giant model DeepSeek, the cancellation of Bitcoin's legal tender status by sovereign nations, and a series of bearish news such as the U.S. imposing tariffs have further worsened the already sluggish market.

The first major post-New Year drop was triggered by Trump's tariff hike.

Related Read: "The Most Miserable Crypto News You Might Have Missed During the Spring Festival Holiday"

Policy Impacting Price? The Highly Sensitive Cryptocurrency Market

Trump's tariff policy is severely impacting the market. U.S. President Donald Trump signed a tariff order on February 1 local time, imposing an additional 25% tariff on imported products from Canada and Mexico, a 10% tariff on energy resources from Canada, set to take effect on the 4th. In addition, on the 1st, Trump signed an executive order to impose an additional 10% tariff on goods imported from mainland China.

The global risk markets reacted swiftly, with cryptocurrencies hit first. Bitcoin's price plummeted rapidly from around $105,000 on the same day, breaking below the $100,000 mark, even dropping below $92,000 at one point, with a more than 7% drop within 24 hours. Ethereum dropped by about 25% at one point, to the lowest level since early September last year, and other mainstream cryptocurrencies also plunged one after another, with declines of over 10%, marking an epic crash.

Policy Tailwinds and Bewilderment Behavior run in parallel, is Trump a true Crypto Builder or a larger Scythe?

On February 3, Trump stated that he had reached an agreement with the Mexican president and decided to immediately suspend the anticipated tariffs for a month. Bitcoin rebounded to a high of $102,500 after the tariff policy delay, while Ethereum rebounded to $2,923, and other mainstream coins also rebounded to their prices before the crash.

Jeff Park, Head of Bitwise Alpha Strategies, stated that tariffs may be just a temporary tool, but in the long run, Bitcoin will not only rise but will rise faster because both parties in the trade imbalance want Bitcoin. Therefore, the ultimate result is the same: higher prices and faster speed.

It can be said that the imposition of tariffs has led to a sharp decline in the global stock market, and with other bearish news, the cryptocurrency market has also seen a decline. The tariffs are not only reshaping the international trade landscape but are also dealing a heavy blow to global financial market confidence. Given the cryptocurrency market's emerging, high-risk, high-return, and relatively undeveloped regulatory characteristics, it has become one of the most sensitive areas in this storm, once again highlighting the increasingly close relationship between the cryptocurrency market and global macroeconomic policies.

Meme Coin Drains Market Liquidity

On January 18, 2025, Donald Trump announced the launch of his personal Meme coin $TRUMP on his social media account. Upon its release, the coin saw a staggering price surge, exceeding 15,000% in just 12 hours, reaching around $30, with a peak market cap of over $800 billion. This remarkable price increase and massive market cap swiftly attracted a large influx of funds. Many investors who originally held Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other mainstream cryptocurrencies started selling off their other holdings to go all-in on $TRUMP. Apart from SOL, most other coins experienced significant sell-offs, causing a sharp downturn in other meme coins, AI Agent tokens, and more.

Furthermore, the $TRUMP issuing team holds a whopping 80% of the locked coins, granting them significant price manipulation power. As the lock-up period gradually unlocks in the future, whether through direct dumping on exchanges or staking in DeFi chains, it could potentially have a huge impact on the market. This behavior will further disrupt the market order of the cryptocurrency world, making it harder for other truly valuable cryptocurrency projects to receive funding support, leading to an imbalance in the entire crypto ecosystem.

The blood-sucking effect of Trump's coin issuance not only caused unreasonable short-term capital flows in the crypto world but also had a severe negative impact on the development and market stability of other cryptocurrency projects. It pressed pause on the once-thriving DeSci, DeFAI, and AI Agent sectors. Based on the crypto industry's fast-paced nature of hyping new projects and dropping old ones, these sectors will need a significant push to regain their momentum. This has brought more uncertainty and risk to the crypto world.

BitMEX co-founder and Chief Information Officer Arthur Hayes believes that $TRUMP's surge to nearly $1 trillion in fully diluted valuation (FDV) within 24 hours is an utterly absurd market signal. The meteoric rise of $TRUMP is akin to the 2021 bull market advertisement sign of FTX purchasing a Major League Baseball referee — it symbolizes the approaching market top.

Exit Scam Pump and Dump: WLFI's Bewildering Behavior

Arkham data reveals that on the night of February 3, World Liberty Financial conducted a large-scale cryptocurrency asset transfer. Their ETH holdings plummeted from around 66k on February 2 to 52, nearly liquidating all their ETH assets, with the majority flowing into a Coinbase Prime deposit address.

At this sensitive moment of asset transfer, Eric Trump, son of former President Trump, expressed on his social media platform that now is the best time to add to ETH. In the initial version of the tweet, there was also a line at the end saying, "You can thank me later."

The community raised doubts about this. Some attentive investors noticed that the ETH holdings decreased from 66k to 66, missing just one unit. This seemed like an attempt to avoid detection of the asset transfer, leading to suspicions of a rug pull conspiracy. WLFI explained that these actions were aimed at maintaining a robust, secure, and efficient financial system, solely reallocating assets for regular business purposes without token sales. However, once the funds were transferred to Coinbase Prime, the actual use remained unknown, and investors could only analyze based on coin price fluctuations and WLFI's subsequent asset operations.

Interestingly, on the morning of February 6, Eric made another public call for BTC while mentioning the family project WLFI. The community jokingly asked, "Should we sell Bitcoin next?" Perhaps this was indeed a pre-dump signal, maybe to boost confidence suppressed by tariff increases, or just a routine promotion of the family project, as issuing calls and announcements was a common practice among these individuals.

Crypto Tsar, or Crypto Rug-Pull?

David Sacks, Chairman of the Crypto Council, is well-known as one of the PayPal founders and later gained fame by creating Yammer and selling it to Microsoft for $1.2 billion. In the crypto world, David Sacks' most significant roles are as an investor in the crypto venture capital firm Multicoin and a Solana maximalist, often referred to as the "Crypto Tsar."

Since $TRUMP is deployed on the Solana blockchain and Trump issued $TRUMP coins, David Sacks has always remained silent on these "zero-sum meme coins." Therefore, many believe that this Chairman of the Crypto Council has some involvement in them.

Another piece of evidence is that David Sacks has a "criminal record." In March 2024, David Sacks posted about a memecoin called $Sacks, named after himself.

Although he tweeted nine times telling people not to buy as they began purchasing, this has already confirmed his "coin issuance" history, which is exactly the same tactic as issuing $TRUMP coin. (According to community feedback, David Sacks recently deleted his posts about $Sacks.)

Image Source Community

This has made many people start to dislike David Sacks, feeling that his methods are too focused on quick gains and too eager to profit through this aggressive means. Even if Sacks did not directly participate, as the chairman of the Crypto Council, he should take responsibility for this incident. There are even rumors that some have proposed replacing the entire leadership of David Sacks' Crypto Council team with a new lineup.

Related Reading: "Trump's Coin Creation Makes Chinese Earn Billions, U.S. Crypto Community Divides"

On February 5, at a press conference held at 3:30 Beijing time, David Sacks reiterated his work goals, such as "establishing a clear crypto regulatory framework," "ensuring crypto innovation happens on U.S. soil," and "ushering in a golden age of digital assets," but did not disclose any new (or specific) content. When mentioning the establishment of a Bitcoin reserve, David Sacks also used the word "evaluate," which is a less definitive term (previously, when the U.S. government had to address the issue but did not want to truly resolve it, they would use the word "evaluate" to be evasive). Perhaps due to the press conference "not announcing any bullish news," market expectations were dashed, causing Bitcoin to fall below $99,000 to a low of $96,147.

Is he a true builder or a wielder of an even larger scythe?

Looking back on Trump's behavior over the years, his attitude toward cryptocurrency has undergone a significant transformation. During his last term, he publicly called Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies a "scam," but now he has promised to make the United States the global "capital of cryptocurrency" and a "Bitcoin superpower." He has also formed a cryptocurrency group, established a family DeFi project, lifted restrictions on new token sales, and strengthened the connection between cryptocurrency companies and other traditional financial institutions.

There may be multiple reasons behind Trump's attitude change. On the one hand, the cryptocurrency market has developed rapidly in recent years, with a large investor base and significant economic influence. Courting this segment of power can help increase his political support. On the other hand, there are powerful interest groups behind the cryptocurrency industry that may influence Trump through political donations, pushing him to enact policies favorable to cryptocurrency development. Additionally, Bitcoin can be seen as a tool to hedge against the weakening of the US dollar's status. Trump's inclusion of it in the national strategic reserves is also a means to attract capital inflows and maintain the dominance of the dollar.

With the election results in, Trump's every move has gradually become a focal point in the crypto community. Especially before taking office, Trump launched his own meme coin, triggering a frenzy among countless investors inside and outside the community, creating many legendary stories of sudden wealth. It was thought to be the beginning of a bull market, but the issuance of the $MELANIA token shattered this illusion, causing the market to calm down and question the purpose of the coin's issuance. The previously booming AI Agent was drained by $TRUMP and $MELANIA, further dampened by deepseek shocks, and has been in a slump ever since. Although the meme frenzy continues, the peak market cap of many tokens keeps shrinking, the time to return to zero shortens, mainstream coins continue to fall after the celebration, prompting us to ponder whether Trump's personal involvement in crypto is truly aimed at being a builder or simply exploiting his term for the maximum benefit of his interest groups and US hegemony, leaving behind a mess in the end?

In the short term, the market will inevitably experience sharp rises and falls to digest various major developments, but long-term value growth and industry sedimentation require not only favorable policies but also a two-way game between the market and politicians. Based on his series of commitments and statements, Trump seems to have a supportive attitude toward cryptocurrency. However, the huge shift in his past remarks and positions makes it difficult to fully believe. Will he really go all out to promote cryptocurrency development and make the US a cryptocurrency haven? Trump, known for his "unexpected" nature, once in office, whether the promised favorable policies can actually be implemented, or if all this is just a facade for political gain, is filled with uncertainty.

For cryptocurrency investors, Trump's current attitude and policy direction are like a double-edged sword. If he truly fulfills his promises and creates a relaxed, friendly environment for cryptocurrency development, the crypto community is likely to usher in a new era of prosperity. However, Trump's frequent sanctions against other countries after taking office, his own and his family's controversial business practices, and the internal conflicts within his administration can also exacerbate global economic and political instability, leading to unpredictable outcomes in his cryptocurrency policy. This instability can spread investor panic, impacting the cryptocurrency market negatively.

It can be said that Trump's imposition of tariffs was just the beginning of his impact on the crypto world during his presidency. In the future, as he advances and implements policies in various areas such as the economy and foreign affairs, the crypto world will likely face even more intense volatility. In such an environment, investors need to closely monitor policy developments and make investment decisions more cautiously.

The bigger the storm, the bigger the fish. Regardless of what unknowns lie ahead, this crypto ship has already set sail, ready to face the challenges and storms.

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$COIN Joins S&P 500, but Coinbase Isn't Celebrating

On May 13, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Coinbase would officially replace Discover Financial Services in the S&P 500 on May 19. While other companies like Block and MicroStrategy, closely tied to Bitcoin, were already part of the S&P 500, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency exchange whose primary business is in the index. This also signifies that cryptocurrency is gradually moving from the fringes to the mainstream in the U.S.



On the day of the announcement, Coinbase's stock price surged by 23%, surpassing the $250 mark. However, just 3 days later, Coinbase was hit by two consecutive events: a hack where employees were bribed to steal customer data and a demand for a $20 million ransom, and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the authenticity of its claim of having over 100 million "verified users" in its securities filings and marketing materials. These two events acted as mini-bombs, and at the time of writing, Coinbase's stock had already dropped by over 7.3%.


Coincidentally, Discover Financial Services, being replaced by Coinbase, can also be considered the "Coinbase" of the previous payment era. Discover is a U.S.-based digital banking and payment services company headquartered in Illinois, founded in 1960. Its payment network, Discover Network, is the fourth largest payment network apart from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.


In April, after the approval of the acquisition of Discover by the sixth-largest U.S. bank, Capital One, this well-established digital banking company of over 60 years smoothly handed over its S&P 500 "seat" to this emerging cryptocurrency "bank." This unexpected coincidence also portrayed the handover between the new and old eras in Coinbase's entry into the S&P 500, resembling a relay race scene. However, this relay baton also brought Coinbase's accumulated "external troubles and internal strife" to a tipping point.


Side Effects of ETFs


Over the past decade, cryptocurrency exchanges have been the most stable "profit machines." They play a role in providing liquidity to the entire industry and rely on trading fees to sustain their operations. However, with the comprehensive rollout of ETF products in the U.S. market, this profit model is facing unprecedented challenges. As the leader in the "American stack," with over 80% of its business coming from the U.S., Coinbase is most affected by this.



Starting from the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, traditional financial capital has significantly onboarded users and funds that originally belonged to exchanges in a more cost-effective, compliant, and transparent manner. The transaction fee revenue of cryptocurrency exchanges has started to decline, and this trend may further intensify in the coming months.


According to Coinbase's 2024 Q4 financial report, the platform's total trading revenue was $417 million, a 45% year-on-year decrease. The contribution of BTC and ETH's trading revenue dropped from 65% in the same period last year to less than 50%.


This decline is not a result of a decrease in market enthusiasm. In fact, since the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, the inflow of BTC into the U.S. market has continued to reach new highs, with asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity rapidly expanding their management scale. Data shows that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) alone has surpassed $17 billion in assets under management. As of mid-May 2025, the cumulative net inflow of 11 major institutional Bitcoin spot ETFs on the market has exceeded $41.5 billion, with a total net asset value of $1214.69 billion, accounting for approximately 5.91% of the total Bitcoin market capitalization.


Chart showing the trend of net outflows for Grayscale among the 11 institutions


Institutional investors and some retail investors are shifting towards ETF products, partly due to compliance and tax considerations. On one hand, ETFs have much lower trading costs compared to cryptocurrency exchanges. While Coinbase's spot trading fee rate varies annually in a tiered manner but averages around 1.49%, for example, the management fee for IBIT ETF is only 0.25%, and the majority of ETF institution fees fluctuate around 0.15% to 0.25%.



In other words, the more rational users are, the more likely they are to move from exchanges to ETF products, especially for investors aiming for long-term holdings.


According to multiple sources, several institutions, including VanEck and Grayscale, have submitted applications to the SEC for a Solana (SOL) ETF, with some institutions also planning to submit an XRP ETF proposal. Once approved, this may trigger a new round of fund migration. According to a report submitted by Coinbase to the SEC, as of April, the platform's trading revenue from XRP and Solana accounted for 18% and 10%, nearly one-third of the platform's fee revenue.



However, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs passed in 2024 also reduced the fees for these two tokens on Coinbase from 30% and 15% to 26% and 10%, respectively. If the SOL and XRP ETFs are approved, it will further undermine the core fee revenue of exchanges like Coinbase.


The expansion of ETF products is gradually weakening the financial intermediary status of cryptocurrency exchanges. From their original roles as matchmakers and clearers to now gradually becoming mere "on-ramps and off-ramps" for funds, exchanges are seeing their marginal value squeezed by ETFs.


Robinhood Takes a Stand, Traditional Brokerages Join the Fray


On May 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins gave a keynote speech at the Tokenization and Cryptocurrency Working Group roundtable. The theme of his speech revolved around "It is a new day at the SEC," where he indicated that the SEC would not approach enforcement and regulation the same way as before but would instead pave the way for cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. market.



With signs of cryptocurrency compliance such as the SEC's "NEW DAY" declaration, an increasing number of traditional brokerages are attempting to enter the cryptocurrency industry. One of the most representative cases is the well-known U.S. brokerage Robinhood, which began expanding its crypto business in 2018. By the time of its IPO in 2021, Robinhood's crypto business revenue accounted for over 50% of the company, with a significant boost from the Dogecoin "moonshot" promoted by Musk.


In Q1 2025 earnings report, Robinhood showcased strong growth, especially in revenue from cryptocurrency and options trading. Fueled by Trump's Memecoin, cryptocurrency-related revenue reached $250 million, nearly doubling year-over-year. Consequently, Robinhood Gold subscription users reached 3.5 million, a 90% increase from the previous year, with the rapid growth of Robinhood Gold providing the company with a stable source of income.



Meanwhile, RobinHood is actively pursuing acquisitions in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, it announced a $2 billion acquisition of the long-standing European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Additionally, Canada's largest cryptocurrency CEX, WonderFi, which recently went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, also announced its integration with RobinHood Crypto. After obtaining virtual asset licenses in the UK, Canada, Singapore, and other markets, RobinHood has taken a proactive approach in the compliant cryptocurrency trading market.



Furthermore, an increasing number of brokerage firms are exploring the same path. Futu Securities, Tiger Brokers, and others are also dipping their toes into cryptocurrency trading, with some having applied for or obtained the VA license from the Hong Kong SFC. Although their user bases are currently small, traditional brokerages have a natural advantage in user trust, regulatory licenses, and low fee structures. This could pose a threat to native cryptocurrency platforms in the future.



User Data Breach: Is Coinbase Still Secure?


In April 2025, security researchers discovered that some Coinbase user data was leaked on the dark web. While the platform initially responded by attributing it to a "technical misinformation," it still raised concerns among users regarding its security and privacy protection. Just two days before Dow Jones Indexes announced Coinbase's addition to the S&P 500 Index, on May 11, 2025, Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor claiming to have obtained customer account information and internal documents, demanding a $20 million ransom to keep the data private. Subsequent investigations confirmed the data breach.


Cybercriminals obtained the data by bribing overseas customer service agents and support staff, mainly in "non-U.S. regions such as India." These agents abused their access to Coinbase's internal customer support system and stole customer data. As early as February this year, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed on X platform that between December 2024 and January 2025, Coinbase users lost over $65 million to social engineering scams, with the actual amount potentially higher.


Among the victims was a well-known figure, 67-year-old Ed Suman, an established artist in the art world for nearly two decades, having been involved in the creation of artworks such as Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog" sculpture. Earlier this year, he fell victim to an impersonation scam involving fake Coinbase customer support, resulting in a loss of over $2 million in cryptocurrency. ZachXBT critiqued Coinbase for its inadequate handling of such scams, noting that other major exchanges have not faced similar issues and recommending Coinbase to enhance its security measures.


Amidst a series of ongoing social engineering incidents, although there has not been any impact on user assets at the technical level so far, it has raised concerns among many retail and institutional investors. Especially institutions holding massive assets on Coinbase. Just considering the U.S. BTC ETF institutions, as of mid-May 2025, they collectively hold nearly 840,000 BTC, and 75% of these are custodied by Coinbase. If we price BTC at $100,000, this amount reaches a staggering $63 billion, which is equivalent to the nominal GDP of two Iceland in the year 2024.


Visualization: ChatGPT, Source: Farside


In addition, Coinbase Custody also serves over 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, and endowments. As of the Q1 2025 financial report, Coinbase's total assets under management (including institutional and retail clients) reached $404 billion. The specific amount of institutional custodied assets was not explicitly disclosed in the latest report, but it should still be over 50% based on the Q4 2024 report.


Visualization: ChatGPT


Once this security barrier is breached, not only could the rate of user attrition far exceed expectations, but more importantly, institutional trust in it would undermine the foundation of its business. Therefore, after a hacking event, Coinbase's stock price plummeted significantly.


CEXs are All in Self-Rescue Mode


Facing a decline in spot trading fee revenue, Coinbase is also accelerating its transformation, attempting to find growth opportunities in derivatives and emerging assets. Coinbase acquired a stake in the options platform Deribit at the end of 2024 and announced the official launch of perpetual contract products in 2025. This acquisition fills in Coinbase's gap in options trading and its relatively small global market share.



Deribit has a strong presence in non-U.S. markets, especially in Asia and Europe. The acquisition has enabled Coinbase to gain a dominant position in bitcoin and ethereum options trading on Deribit, accounting for approximately 80% of the global options trading volume, with daily trading volume remaining above $2 billion.


Meanwhile, 80-90% of Deribit's customer base consists of institutional investors, with their professionalism and liquidity in the Bitcoin and Ethereum options market highly favored by institutions. Coinbase's compliance advantage, coupled with its already robust institutional ecosystem, makes it even more suitable. By using institutions as an entry point, it can face the squeeze from giants like Binance and OKX in the derivatives market.



Facing a similar dilemma is Kraken, which is attempting to replicate Binance Futures' model in non-U.S. markets. Since the derivatives market relies more on professional users, fee rates are relatively higher and stickiness is stronger, making it a significant source of revenue for exchanges. In the first half of 2025, Kraken completed the acquisition of TradeStation Crypto and a futures exchange, aiming to build a complete derivatives trading ecosystem to hedge the risk of declining spot transaction fee income.


With the surge of Memecoin in 2024, Binance, OKX, and various CEX platforms began massively listing small-market-cap, highly volatile tokens to activate active trading users. Due to the wealth effect and trading activity of Memecoins, Coinbase was also forced to join the battle, successively listing popular tokens from the Solana ecosystem such as BOOK OF MEME and Dogwifhat. Although these coins are controversial, they are frequently traded, with fee rates several times higher than mainstream coins, serving as a "blood-boosting" method for spot trading.


However, due to its status as a publicly traded company, this practice is a riskier endeavor for Coinbase. Even in the current crypto-friendly environment, the SEC is still investigating whether tokens like SOL, ADA, and SAND constitute securities.


In addition to the forced transformation strategies carried out by the aforementioned CEXs, they are also starting to lay out RWAs and the most talked-about stablecoin payment fields, such as the PYUSD launched through a collaboration between Coinbase and Paypal, Coinbase's support for the Euro stablecoin EURC by Circle that complies with EU MiCA regulatory requirements, or the USD1 launched through a collaboration between Binance and WIFL. In the increasingly crowded trading field, many CEXs have shifted their focus from just the trading market to the application field.


The golden age of transaction fees has quietly ended, and the second half of the crypto exchange platform game has silently begun.


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CryptoPunks Changes Hands Twice, Did the Originator of NFTs Finally Find Its "Forever Home" This Time?

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