Crypto downturn Bitcoin plunges as crypto fans didnt get everything they wanted from Trump Bitcoin hit record $109,000 on Inauguration Day but has dropped 23 percent since. Jon Brodkin Feb 26, 2025 2:54 pm | 67 Credit: Getty Images | Andriy Onufriyenko Credit: Getty Images | Andriy Onufriyenko Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreThe price of bitcoin hit a record high of $109,114.88 during intraday trading on January 20, the day of President Trump's inauguration, but has plummeted since and went as low as $83,741.94 during today's trading.That's a 23.3 percent drop from the intraday record to today's low, though it was back over $84,000 as of this writing. Bitcoin had been above $100,000 as recently as February 7, and was over $96,000 on Monday this week.Bitcoin's drop is part of a wider rout in which over $800 billion of nominal value "has been wiped off global cryptocurrency markets in recent weeks, as the enthusiasm that swept the crypto industry after Donald Trump's election victory last year ebbs away," the Financial Times wrote today.Bitcoin hit a then-record of $89,623 in November, a week after the election, amid optimism about Trump's plans for crypto-friendly policies. It hit $100,000 for the first time in early December after Trump announced his planned nomination of Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission.Trump made several early moves to support crypto. "After pouring tens of millions of dollars into Trump's 2024 campaign for president, the crypto industry has been paid back handsomely during his first week in the White House," CNBC wrote on January 25.For example, the SEC rescinded a 2022 accounting rule "that forced banks to treat bitcoin and other tokens as a liability on their balance sheets," a change that is said to make it easier for "regulated institutions to adopt crypto as an asset class that they support on behalf of the clients."Trump impact overestimatedBut enthusiasm waned as crypto investors apparently expected Trump to do more to boost the market in the five weeks since his inauguration. Traders hoped the US would start buying bitcoin and "rapidly enact new rules to encourage large financial institutions to buy crypto," today's Financial Times article said."There has been a recalibration of expectations regarding the Trump administration's crypto stance," Gadi Chait, investment manager at Xapo Bank, told the Financial Times. Michael Dempsey, managing partner at venture capital firm Compound, was quoted as saying that many crypto enthusiasts "materially overestimated [Trump's] positive impact on the space."The article cited an estimate that "the average purchase price of bitcoin ETFs [exchange-traded funds] since the US election was around $97,000 per coin, meaning that buyers during that period have collectively lost around $1.3 billion."Trump launched his own "$Trump" memecoin on January 17. Melania Trump launched a memecoin as well. The Trump memecoins have dropped in value, and so has one promoted by Argentina President Javier Milei.The so-called "end of the memecoin boom" is said to be creating a drag on the market, and the recent $1.5 billion ethereum heist is "reigniting worries about the security of digital tokens held by trading venues," the Financial Times wrote. "The price of ethereum has fallen 23 percent over the past month, while solana, the token representing the blockchain that hosts most of the memecoins, has dropped 42 percent."Bitcoin reserve not everything investors hoped forIn an executive order on January 23, Trump proposed creating a "national digital asset stockpile" that would potentially contain "cryptocurrencies lawfully seized by the Federal Government through its law enforcement efforts." The government holds about 198,000 bitcoins, although the Justice Department has court approval to sell 69,370 bitcoins from its largest-ever seizure.The executive order directed federal agencies to identify regulations affecting digital assets that "should be rescinded or modified." The SEC is also reportedly ending cases against Coinbase and Robinhood that began under the Biden administration.Those moves show that, as expected, US regulators will be less aggressive with the crypto industry under Trump. But this hasn't boosted crypto prices because investors seem to have already "priced in" expectations that Trump would give the sector everything it wanted. A Bloomberg article on January 26 described some discontent with Trump's first crypto moves:"Even though the market got 90 percent of what it wanted with the executive orders, it evidently was mostly priced in," said Sean McNulty, head of APAC derivatives at digital-asset prime brokerage FalconX. Anything short of a stockpile plan "that immediately started buying BTC was going to disappoint," he added.Jon BrodkinSenior IT ReporterJon BrodkinSenior IT Reporter Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry. 67 Comments