Topline
The price of bitcoin slid below the $90,000 mark on Tuesday and dropped to its lowest level since mid-November, amid a broader selloff in the crypto market that follows the biggest crypto tokens theft of all time and a few high-profile controversies involving meme coins.
Bitcoin’s price hit its lowest level since mid-November on Tuesday.
Key Facts
The price of the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency stood at $88,780 early on Tuesday, down nearly 7.5% over the previous 24 hours.
The token’s value has fallen more than 19% since it hit an all-time high of $109,114 on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Ether, the second-most valuable crypto asset by market cap, saw an even steeper drop of more than 11% in the previous 24 hours—falling to $2,390 on Tuesday morning.
The prices of other popular crypto tokens including the Ripple Labs linked XRP, Binance’s BNB and Solana’s SOL also saw steep declines of 14.3%, 6.4% and 15% respectively in the past day.
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How Has Trump’s Meme Coin Been Impacted?
Just days before his inauguration, the president launched an official meme coin, $TRUMP, on the Solana blockchain. Shortly after launch, the meme coin’s price surged above $75, with its market cap briefly crossing $15 billion. On Tuesday, the price of the meme token stood at $12.90, down more than 14% over the previous 24 hours and more than 82% from its all-time high. At the time of $TRUMP’s launch, the token’s website included a disclaimer saying it was not intended to be “an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type,” but rather an “expression of support” for the president. At the time of the launch, several crypto executives warned that a volatile meme token endorsed by the president was likely to harm the industry’s reputation.
What Are The Other Recent Meme Coin-Related Controversies?
The highest-profile recent meme coin-related controversy outside Trump involved Argentinian President Javier Milei and his promotion of the $LIBRA token. Earlier this month, Milei made a now-deleted post on X promoting the token and said it was dedicated to encouraging economic growth in his country by funding small businesses and startups. Following Milei’s post, $LIBRA’s price surged and its market cap crossed $4 billion. However, the token’s early backers immediately began to cash out, causing the token’s price to tank in a manner that resembled a pump-and-dump scheme. Since then, Milei has tried to distance himself from the project, and dismissed complaints from investors who lost their money, saying: “If you go to a casino and lose money, what’s there to complain about when you knew the risks?” The incident led to dozens of fraud cases being filed against the Argentinian leader. In another incident this month, a scammer was able to impersonate the premier of Bermuda to promote a fake meme token called the Bermuda National Coin. A few days before the Milei controversy, Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadéra launched a meme-coin of his own as a purported “experiment” to raise the profile of one of the world’s poorest nations. The coin’s value has slumped by more than 97% since its launch.
What Do We Know About The Bybit Exchange Hack?
Last week, the Bybit exchange was the target of the biggest hacks ever involving cryptocurrencies. The company announced that a hacker had gained control of one of its wallets and had stolen Ether holdings worth nearly $1.5 billion. The company’s CEO Ben Zhou, however, said the exchange remains solvent and even if they can’t recover the stolen tokens all users’ assets are safe.
Further Reading
Trump Bullishness Pushes Bitcoin To 4-Week High—As Crypto Experts Push For Stockpile On Day One (Forbes)
Bitcoin Dips To 2-Month Low—JPMorgan Billionaire Dimon Warns He Still Doesn’t ‘Feel Great’ About It (Forbes)
