Strengths
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the best performer for the week was Official TRUMP, rising 402.61%.
- World Liberty Financial, the DeFi project associated with U.S. President Donald Trump, acquired roughly $112.8 million worth of cryptocurrencies on Trump’s first day in office. The crypto project supported by Trump’s family further diversified its treasury holdings by purchasing six kinds of tokens including $47 million worth of ether and $47 million worth of wrapped bitcoin, writes Bloomberg.
- President Donald Trump is planning to release an executive order elevating crypto as a policy priority and giving industry insiders a voice within his administration, Bloomberg explains. The order is expected to name crypto as a national imperative or priority intended to guide government agencies to work with the industry.
Weaknesses
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the worst performer for the week was ai16z, down 29.46%.
- Kenya will require providers of virtual assets to set up local offices as authorities in the East African nation seek a firmer grip on the fast-growing industry. The proposed policy excluded assets that can’t be transferred, exchanged or traded outside a close ecosystem, writes Bloomberg.
- Riot Platforms say it’s halting the development of a previously announced 600 MW Phase Bitcoin mining expansion at its Corsicana facility in connection with an evaluation of AI/HPC opportunities, Bloomberg report. Riot now sees 2025 ending with a total hash rate capacity of 38.4 EH/s.
Opportunities
- Billionaire Alex Gerko’s quantitative-trading firm XTX Markets is investing more than 1 billion euros building five data centers in Finland to underpin its growing use of machine learning. The London-based market maker, which uses complex trading algorithms to trade over $250 billion worth of assets a day, will build the hub in central Finland, according to Bloomberg.
- Bitcoin appears to be back on track toward record highs with the second inauguration of pro-crypto President Donald Trump. The largest cryptocurrency by market value has climbed as much as 13% since Sunday putting it on pace for the biggest weekly gain since election week in November, writes Bloomberg.
- Cryptocurrency-wallet provider Phantom Technologies has raised $150 million in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital and Paradigm that value the startup at $3 billion more than double its previous valuation.
Threats
- A co-founder of French crypto wallet startup Ledger SAS and his partner were released after being kidnapped in central France, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Thursday. David Balland was taken from his home in the early hours of Tuesday and freed on Wednesday night after a police operation in Chateauroux, writes Bloomberg.
- A United Arab Emirates cryptocurrency firm caught in an FBI “wash trading” sting operation won’t operate in the U.S. market anymore and will pay more than $428,000 to settle Securities and Exchange Commission claims. CLS Global will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud, writes Bloomberg.
- Recently hot meme coin Fartcoin is down 17% in the last 24 hours amid news that Andy Ayrey, the creator of the popular AI bot Truth Terminal that inspires the token, helped facilitate the sale of a majority of its Fartcoin holdings in an over-the-counter trade, according to Bloomberg.
