All articles tagged with #cryptocurrencies
The Daily Beast reports that the Trump family’s wealth is booming through crypto and prediction markets as the CFTC retreats from enforcement; Don Jr. sits on Polymarket and advises Kalshi, Polymarket’s value has surged, and GOP lawmakers are blasting an $1.8B Jan. 6 payouts fund while the White House seeks a multibillion underground bunker budget—highlighting moneyed influence and growing intra‑party division.
Trump-affiliated crypto ventures face mounting pressure: World Liberty Financial is sued by Justin Sun; the CLARITY Act could add ethics provisions that would curb Trump’s crypto profits while in office; Alt5 Sigma Corp. has seen leadership changes and a steep stock decline; Democrats are urging ethics scrutiny amid a broader industry push for regulatory clarity and concerns over centralization.
Tickets for Trump's Mar-a-Lago VIP memecoin event have fallen by more than 80% to about $539,000, with almost 300 winners investing a median that amount—far below last year's $3.28 million—as the $TRUMP token has cratered, fueling ethics concerns, lawmakers' questions, and lawsuits surrounding the project.
Bitcoin rose to about $72,800, up roughly 6.7%, defying selloffs tied to Iran tensions as Ethereum and XRP also gained; Trump endorses the Clarity Act for digital assets, while gold fell and stock markets swung, highlighting crypto's resilience amid geopolitical risk.
Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP fell as an AI scare weighed on markets, with Bitcoin slipping below $65,000 after a Citrini Research note warned AI could push U.S. unemployment into double digits by mid-2028, underscoring how crypto prices remain sensitive to broader equity moves.
Bitcoin slipped about 4% to roughly $64,443 as Trump announced a 15% global tariff under a 1974 Trade Act provision, injecting policy uncertainty. Since the start of 2026, bitcoin has fallen about 25%, gold futures rose around 2.9%, and crypto-related stocks like Robinhood and Strategy also declined on the tariff news, which Deutsche Bank framed as a temporary measure with potential legal challenges.
Bitcoin fell to about $64,830 in early trading, dropping nearly 5% from Sunday to Monday and hitting a weekend low of around $64,324 as investors pull back from risk assets amid tariff uncertainty and rising U.S.–Iran tensions; year-to-date, bitcoin is down about 24% while gold has gained roughly 20%.
A class-action lawsuit accuses Steve Bannon and Boris Epshteyn of promoting the Lets Go Brandon Coin memecoin as a serious financial project while allegedly exercising centralized control, misrepresenting its decentralization and real-world utility, and involving unregistered securities concerns; the coin was originally launched on Binance Smart Chain and is tied to broader political-crypto tensions under regulatory scrutiny.
A clerical error at South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb sent 620,000 BTC (about $43 billion) to 695 customers as a promotional reward instead of 2,000 won; withdrawals were restricted, roughly 99.7% of the funds have been recovered, and there was a brief price dip on the exchange. Bithumb emphasized there was no hacking or external security breach.
Bitcoin slid about 8% to around $67,000, below $70,000 for the first time since November 2024, as a tech-stock sell-off dragged crypto prices lower; ether fell about 9% to $1,950. The move erases gains from a Trump-era rally that had propelled Bitcoin to a peak above $125,000 last year, with investors shifting toward gold as enthusiasm waned and US crypto legislation stalls. Kalshi traders priced in roughly a 90% chance Bitcoin falls below $60,000 this year. Michael Saylor’s Strategy company fell about 13% on the day, and Gemini announced a plan to lay off about 200 employees to cut costs.
A UAE-linked investment firm tied to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan agreed to invest $500 million for a 49% stake in Trump-affiliated World Liberty Financial, with $187 million already paid, just days before last year's presidential inauguration, prompting Democrats to call the deal ‘mind-blowing corruption’ and raising national-security concerns over UAE access to Nvidia AI chips; the piece links this to prior crypto deals and ongoing regulatory debates around crypto in the Trump era.
President Trump’s pick to lead the Fed, Kevin Warsh, has crypto markets weighing a bitcoin–dollar dynamic: he’s praised bitcoin as “gold for anyone under 40” while also signaling a hawkish policy stance and maintaining ties to stablecoins and early bitcoin ETFs. The nomination sparked a price dip in bitcoin, but Warsh’s comments suggest crypto could inform policy and fit into broader discussions about stablecoins and CBDCs, all set against a backdrop of rising debt and questions about monetary dominance. It’s early to discern his exact policy path until he resumes duties at the Fed.
Big crypto players have withdrawn support for the Clarity Act, a sweeping US bill to regulate digital assets, after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong pulled his backing and the Senate delayed action amid internal industry disputes. The move underscores infighting between crypto firms, banks, and lawmakers as midterm politics loom, leaving the bill’s fate uncertain even as the White House pushes crypto-friendly rules and debates over issues like stablecoins and tokenized securities persist.
The U.S. Senate Banking Committee postponed a discussion of a draft cryptocurrency regulation bill hours after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong opposed it, arguing the plan would define tokens as securities or commodities and could curb tokenized equities and stablecoin rewards; with Coinbase’s backing in doubt, the bill’s fate remains uncertain.
Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams promoted a Solana-based NYC Token intended to fund a non-profit and fight antisemitism; the token saw a rapid price rise and liquidation of about $2.5 million to USDC within an hour, leading to accusations of a pump-and-dump/rug pull, a pattern seen with celebrity-endorsed meme coins; Adams had previously backed crypto projects like NYC Coin during his tenure.