The crypto market and the Trump family remain inextricable
Even with friends in high places, crypto’s instability is showing as investors respond to President Donald Trump’s trade war and reports of deal talks between Binance U.S. and the Trump family. Amidst the market chaos tariffs have wrought, here are some cryptocurrencies to watch this week.
Binance’s crytocurrency BNB popped after two reports that the Trump family was in talks to snap up a stake in the Binance U.S. exchange (which pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering in 2023). The reported talks apparently touched on the idea of the two parties co-developing a stablecoin. Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao denied the reports, but said he wouldn’t “mind a pardon.” Still, BNB was sitting around $615 as of Sunday evening, up 8% from its price five days prior.
Meme coins are so out this season (well... mostly), and the Trump family’s token is no exception. The token was trading around $11.32 as of Sunday evening, down about 47.9% from a month ago. On Inauguration Day, TRUMP’s market cap was around $14.5 billion; it now sits at roughly $2.2 billion.
Talk of an end to the legal battle between the SEC and Ripple is drawing attention to the payment company’s token, XRP.
After a dip below $80,000 last week, Bitcoin staged a minor recovery over the weekend. The leading cryptocurrency was still down 10.9% from Jan. 1 as of Sunday evening, and that means the folks who flocked to it after witnessing the post-election boom are still seeing red. The early days of Trump’s second term have spelled chaos for Bitcoin, the price of which loosely correlates with the stock market. Given the tariffs to come and uncertainty surrounding AI stocks, more stock market carnage could drag Bitcoin down with it.
A vote on reissuing burned tokens thrust Crypto.com-backed Cronos further into the spotlight. The cryptocurrency popped 3% in 24 hours to around $0.085 as of Sunday night.
