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Inauguration Edition: A New Reality

The election of Donald Trump promises a new era for digital assets characterized by greater regulatory certainty and a surge in market activity. The question now is whether this shift is sustainable, or a temporary reaction to the political climate. According to CCData’s latest Exchange Review report , aggregated spot and derivatives volumes, the most common measure evaluated for market participation, recorded a new yearly high in 2024, greatly exceeding the previous record set in 2021 ($75 trillion vs $64 trillion). With the election driving market activity and speculation, November and December were both record-breaking months for volumes, with $10.51 trillion and $11.31 trillion in monthly volumes, respectively. For context, the 2024 average (the biggest year on record) was roughly $6.4 trillion. You`re reading Crypto Long & Short , our weekly newsletter featuring insights, news and analysis for the professional investor. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday. Concurrently, stablecoins reached a total market cap of $210.1 billion, its highest ever point, on inauguration day, according to DeFiLlama . This reflects a YTD increase of 3.3% thus far, on the back of improved liquidity conditions across both centralized and decentralized exchanges, supporting the influx of fresh volumes seen in the last few months. Assets “made in the USA” have been doing particularly well. These have been an outlier since the election, where a permissive regulatory environment, and the promise of more favourable conditions for US-based assets, have generated significant investor interest and speculation. Coins such as XRP, SOL, XLM and ALGO, which have a strong U.S.- affiliation, have seen outsized returns. Per CCData, the basket associated with these coins is up over 360%, outpacing the market by a sizeable margin. This marks an about-turn from the previous administration`s regulatory clampdown, which kept these under scrutiny for many years as they were ultimately deemed securities by the SEC. Whether this unprecedented growth continues will depend heavily on the new Trump administration’s execution of its promises on a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, incentives for domestic bitcoin mining, and other issues. The broader market may also benefit as we enter into the expansionary phase of the bitcoin four-year historical cycle, which tends to see explosive growth in the final year. It will be interesting to see whether this new administration will impact the market cycles to which the cryptocurrency sector has grown accustomed, or whether it will mark a significant departure from historical trends. CoinTurk News

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Bitcoin To Be Worth ‘Multiple Millions’ Someday — Coinbase CEO Explains Why

The FTX implosion may seem like a distant memory when Bitcoin (BTC) slumped to $15,000 lows in November 2022. The sentiment during that time was extreme fear, and the industry never imagined it would bounce back. Fast forward to a little over two years later, the world’s largest and oldest crypto is valued at over $100,000 with a new crypto-friendly U.S. administration in charge. And one of the crypto industry’s most prominent leaders, Brian Armstrong, has predicted that BTC could potentially hit “multiple millions” per coin. Why is the Coinbase CEO so bullish on Bitcoin? Bitcoin Price To Millions? In a recent interview with CNBC , Coinbase’s chief executive officer Brian Armstrong said he believes the Bitcoin price could reach millions of dollars in the coming years. “We have seen just incredible growth, and I think it hit an all-time high yesterday, so we feel very good about that,” he posited. “I think over time we’ll see Bitcoin get into the multiple millions price range.” Just before the Donald Trump inauguration on Jan. 20, BTC smashed a new all-time high price point of $108,786. The top crypto, however, nosedived sharply shortly afterward following disappointment over Trump sidestepping crypto while delivering his Inauguration Day speech and the absence of an executive order related to a national strategic Bitcoin reserve. Even though Trump may have backpedaled on his day one crypto promises, enthusiasts are still hopeful of a more favorable regulatory environment under his administration. According to Armstrong, Trump finally building a national Bitcoin reserve would spur FOMO among other nation-states to establish their own BTC reserves. “If the U.S. took that path, probably the rest of the G20 would follow. I think Bitcoin has a long way to go— it’s going to be the new gold standard out there, but crypto is really much bigger than that too,” the industry leader asserted. Bitcoin’s Promising Future Under Trump Donald Trump is now officially the 47th President of the United States. On Jan. 21, the Securities and Exchange Commission took the first toward reforming its approach to crypto by launching a crypto task force dedicated to “developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets.” The task force is spearheaded by long-time crypto evangelist, Commissioner Hester Pierce, and will work closely with the crypto industry to formulate regulations. Most crypto pundits are already excited by Trump’s appointment of Commissioner Mark Uyeda to serve as the acting SEC chair. That being said, Coinbase’s Armstrong is hardly alone in million-dollar BTC price forecasts. MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor, whose company currently holds a whopping 461,000 Bitcoin , pushed the envelope. The tech billionaire predicted last September that Bitcoin could see an astronomical flight to $13 million per coin over the next 21 years. That would represent an over 13,000% price appreciation from BTC’s current price of $105,321. CoinTurk News