By Steven Ehrlich

In 2025, the Trump administration presented a series of "gifts" to the cryptocurrency industry.

The Trump administration presented a series of "gifts" to the cryptocurrency industry in 2025.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has suspended enforcement actions and investigations against major cryptocurrency exchanges and companies such as Coinbase, Gemini, Uniswap, OpenSea, ConsenSys, etc. The White House issued an executive order to promote U.S. leadership in the digital asset industry and expressed its intention to build a Bitcoin reserve.

However, these moves have not been enough to stem the recent decline in Bitcoin prices and overall negative sentiment in the crypto industry. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is currently priced at $84,000, down 18% since Donald Trump’s inauguration and nearly 23% from its all-time high, while the total cryptocurrency market capitalization has fallen 21%.

Kavita Gupta, founder and general partner of Delta Blockchain Fund, said: "It feels like all the good news in the crypto space has happened, and the positive developments in the industry seem to be just due to the whim of senior politicians, lacking due process and due diligence... The situation may change at any time, and the sustainability is questionable."

The three major forces driving the market down right now are likely to push it even lower before it regains its footing and begins to move back up. In fact, the crypto industry may have to wait until 2026 before it sees sustained bullish momentum again.

Internal backlash

There are many reasons to explain the recent decline, starting with the behavior of cryptocurrency participants themselves.

For example, the industry has been marred by multiple memecoin scandals, such as $MELANIA and, later, $LIBRA, which even dragged Argentinian President Javier Milley into the scandal. Now, memecoin issuance and trading activity are declining across the industry, raising questions about their long-term sustainability. For example, daily issuance of new tokens reached a local peak of 66,471 on January 24, just six days after $TRUMP went live. On February 27, the latest full data day available, that number fell to 27,741, a 58% drop.

Brian Rudick, GSR’s head of research, said of the data: “People used to think that meme coins were the fairest and most efficient form of speculation in crypto, but $LIBRA shows that this is not the case. Now you’re seeing a massive reduction in on-chain volume, [and while] meme coins are bearing the brunt of it, this is dragging down the entire crypto space.”

In addition, the $1.5 billion hack of Bybit by North Korean hackers (the largest theft in cryptocurrency history) has once again raised questions about whether it is safe to put money into cryptocurrencies. Gupta pointed out: "These hacks have made the outside world think that even after 10 years of development, this industry has not really matured."

External headwinds

All of this negative sentiment within the industry is being amplified by a reduction in risk appetite among investors more broadly.

Typically, a new administration boosts consumer confidence, and business leaders initially welcomed Trump's election because of his pro-business mindset. However, new data shows consumer confidence is weakening, likely due to Trump's threats to impose 25% tariffs on trading partners such as China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

The Conference Board's consumer confidence index, a nonprofit think tank, fell for the third consecutive month in February, hitting its lowest level since August 2021.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey also showed a sharp drop in consumer confidence. The report stated: "Consumer sentiment continued its downward trend from earlier in the month, falling nearly 10% from January. This decline was widespread across age, income and wealth groups."

The report also mentioned: "Expectations for inflation over the next year rose to 4.3% from 3.3%, the highest level since November 2023, and has increased abnormally sharply for two consecutive months. The current reading is well above the range of 2.3%-3.0% in the two years before the epidemic."

“According to the latest data from the CME Fedwatch tool, the market is pricing in two rate cuts this year. But if those expectations were to completely evaporate due to tariffs, traditional markets could fall more than cryptocurrencies,” Rudick noted.

How low will Bitcoin go?

It is difficult to predict exactly how far Bitcoin will fall from now.

Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, said that even among commodities, Bitcoin is unique. "You know the supply and demand of crude oil, coffee or cocoa. Bitcoin does not have the same type of intrinsic demand. It exists purely for speculative or investment purposes."

However, Sosnick pointed to several technical charts that could provide some ideas for price thresholds that investors should watch.