Bitcoin Fades From Highs After No Crypto Mentions During Trump's Inauguration Speech

Crypto markets saw wild price swings on Monday during Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony as heightened excitement turned to disappointment after he declined to mention crypto during his first speech.

Crypto markets experienced significant price volatility on Monday, with the broad-market crypto benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index falling over 5% during Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony.

Anticipation for Trump's presidency was high in the crypto industry, with many expecting friendlier policies towards digital assets after years of regulatory uncertainty and clampdown. However, the launch of Trump-affiliated meme tokens only days before he entered office sparked a speculative frenzy on crypto trading platforms and drew criticism from several prominent figures.

Here's a look at how some crypto assets performed during Trump's inauguration:

The CoinDesk 20 Index, which tracks the prices of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, fell over 5% during the ceremony, while bitcoin (BTC) dipped to $101,000 from $106,000 before stabilizing around $103,000.

Solana (SOL) led losses among altcoin majors, dropping nearly 10% from its recent lifetime record. The layer-1 network was at the center of the weekend crypto frenzy over Trump-related memecoins.

TRUMP, Donald Trump's official memecoin which launched Friday on Solana, tanked 30% from $50 during Trump's speech. It later recovered some of its losses but was still down roughly 20% from its session high.

MELANIA — the token named for First Lady Melanie Trump and launched one day after TRUMP — plummeted as much as 46% before paring some of the losses.

The volatility also liquidated over $700 million of derivatives across all digital assets on exchanges through Monday, according to CoinGlass. Of the liquidated positions, nearly $500 million were longs betting on prices to rise.

Including the overnight selloff before the inauguration brings the total liquidations over $1.2 billion in the past 24 hours, marking the biggest leverage wipeout of this year.