The Trump Administration Has Provided the Crypto Industry with a Number of Gifts in 2025

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) halted enforcement actions and investigations into major crypto exchanges and companies like Coinbase, Gemini, Uniswap, OpenSea

The Trump Administration has provided the crypto industry with a number of gifts in 2025.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) halted enforcement actions and investigations into major crypto exchanges and companies like Coinbase, Gemini, Uniswap, OpenSea, ConsenSys, and others. The White House issued an Executive Order to promote American leadership in the digital asset industry, and it has made musings about building a bitcoin stockpile.

However, none of these actions has been consequential enough to stem the recent decline in the price of bitcoin and negative sentiments in the crypto industry overall. Currently priced at $84,000, Bitcoin is down 18% since Donald Trump’s inauguration, almost 23% since its all time high, and the broader crypto market has fallen by 21%.

Kavita Gupta, founder and general partner at Delta Blockchain Fund said, “It feels like all of the positive things in crypto are happening because the top people in politics are like, ‘Let’s just do it.’ There is no due process, there’s no due diligence … and this movement can [shift] at any given point of time. It doesn’t seem like sustainability’s there.”

Three main forces driving the market down could push it still lower before it regains footing and starts to climb back. In fact, the industry may need to wait until 2026 before it sees sustained bullish momentum again.

Crypto’s Self-Inflicted Wounds

There is no shortage of reasons to choose from when explaining the recent downturn. First would be the actions of crypto participants.

For instance, the industry did itself no favors with multiple memecoin fiascos like $MELANIA and then $LIBRA, which ensnared Argentine President Javier Milei in scandal. Now memecoin launches and trading activity are dropping across the industry, leaving questions about its sustainability over the long term. For example, the launch of daily new tokens reached a local top of 66,471 on Jan. 24, just six days after $TRUMP went live. On Feb. 27, the last day of full data available, that number dropped to 27,741, a decline of 58%.

Brian Rudick, head of research at GSR, said of these debacles, “Folks had looked at memecoins as the most fair and efficient form of speculation in crypto, but $LIBRA demonstrated that this actually was not true. Now you are seeing a lot less onchain volumes, and [while] memecoins are taking the brunt of it, it’s bringing down the whole crypto space.”

The other punch that really hurt the industry was North Korea’s $1.5 billion hack of Bybit, the largest theft in crypto history, which once again is forcing people to ask whether it is safe to put their money into crypto. “All that these hacks do is make people who are sitting [on the] outside think that this industry, even [over] the last 10 years, has not really gotten mature enough,” said Gupta.

Exogenous Headwinds

All of this negative sentiment within the industry is being turbocharged by reduced risk appetites among investors more broadly.

Typically consumer optimism surges with the dawn of a new administration, and business leaders initially cheered Trump’s election because of his pro-business mindset. However, multiple new data points suggest that consumer confidence is weakening, likely due to the threats of 25% tariffs from President Trump directed towards trading partners like China, Canada, Mexico, and the European Union

The February report from the nonprofit think tank Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell for the third straight month and reported its lowest reading since August of 2021.

These findings dovetail with findings from a University of Michigan survey on consumer sentiment that has shown a major drop-off in consumer confidence. According to the report, “Consumer sentiment extended its early month decline, sliding nearly 10% from January. The decrease was unanimous across groups by age, income, and wealth.”

It went on to say, “Year-ahead inflation expectations jumped up from 3.3% last month to 4.3% this month, the highest reading since November 2023 and marking two consecutive months of unusually large increases. The current reading is now well above the 2.3-3.0% range seen in the two years prior to the pandemic.”

These expectations for inflation, which the survey reported span across multiple age groups and income brackets will be especially crucial to watch, since inflation can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rudick noted, “The last I looked, the CME Fedwatch tool was pricing in two rate cuts this year. I think if those got fully priced out [because of concerns around tariffs], there’d be more downside in the traditional markets than in crypto.”

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