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|6 min ReadFive Crypto Flashpoints That Defined Power In 2025
Jax Morales
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 16, 2026
Bitcoin hit all time highs. The industry hit turbulence. From billion dollar hacks to a presidential memecoin, 2025 kept testing the line between innovation and influence. The stakes were real. Markets moved. Regulators watched. Voters paid attention.
January: a presidential memecoin and a frenzy
Hours before his inauguration, Donald Trump unveiled his official TRUMP memecoin. It debuted near 70, then fell hard. First Lady Melania Trump launched TRUMP trades near MELANIA](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/melania-meme/) sits around $0.13.
They were marketed as celebratory digital collectibles. They also raised questions about ethics and legality. Trump, once skeptical on crypto, cast himself as a champion and promised to make America a hub for digital assets. His family’s firm, World Liberty Financial, moved deeper into the sector.
Within hours, the combined market cap neared $11 billion. A branding exercise became the first major controversy of the year. Tremendous attention. Tremendous risk.
February: a record hack and a geopolitical footprint
Barely a month later, Dubai based exchange Bybit disclosed a breach. Hackers stole roughly $1.5 billion in Ether from a cold wallet. Analysts at Elliptic later determined it was the largest single theft ever recorded in digital or traditional finance.
The attack was later linked to a North Korean state sponsored group. That took it from a security failure to a geopolitical event. Confidence shook. Risk teams repriced what a cold wallet really means. Everybody knows the game changed.
May: token top holders buy access
In May, a new spike in $TRUMP trading followed a striking announcement. Only top holders would be invited to a black tie dinner at one of the president’s golf clubs, according to reporting on the event. Token ownership became a ticket to personal access.
Representatives Adam Smith and Sean Casten led 35 House Democrats urging the Department of Justice to investigate whether the dinner offer to top token investors was bribery or violated the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause. Their letter said the event invited “foreign influence over U.S. policy decisions and raises potential corruption and emoluments clause violations. It is just the latest example of President Trump disregarding ethics norms, introducing further conflicts of interest, and using his office for self-enrichment.”
October: shorts, tariffs, and a liquidation cascade
In October, blockchain analysts uncovered that an anonymous trader had shorted Bitcoin and Ethereum minutes before President Trump announced new tariffs on China. The statement triggered the largest liquidation cascade in crypto history. The trader reportedly earned $160 million before markets found their footing. Commentators, including The Kobeissi Letter, asked the obvious question. Did someone know.
No direct evidence of insider information has surfaced. The episode still reignited fears about political timing and information asymmetry in digital asset markets. When policy moves markets, traders chase the edge. That is the truth.
October: a pardon with consequences
Weeks later, President Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance. CZ had pleaded guilty in 2023 to anti money laundering violations and served four months in prison. Binance paid more than $4 billion in fines.
The pardon erased Zhao’s record and reopened the door to new ventures. The White House called it a correction to Biden era overreach. The BBC reported that Zhao’s companies had partnered with firms linked to Trump family crypto projects. That only sharpened the perception of conflict and deepened the administration’s alignment with the industry.
What this year really showed
January blurred hype and governance. February exposed security risk at scale. May turned token ownership into access. October showed how policy timing can swing markets and fortunes in minutes. The late month pardon reminded everyone that power and crypto are now deeply linked. The industry delivered a beautiful mix of innovation and ambition. It also hit limits set by law, ethics, and trust. That tension defined 2025. It will shape what comes next.
Disclaimer: This document is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed in this document are not, and should not be taken as, investment advice or recommendations. Recipients should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, which are not considered here, before investing. This document is not an offer, or the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned.