‘A Fucking Disgrace’ 🤬
Plus, 🔥 Market gyrations prompt big liquidations, 🏁 Solana sets the pace, 🧯Catastrophe protection for crypto, and more!
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.
In today’s edition:
🔥 TRUMP token: Upstaged and put down
💼 Liquidations: Thick and fast
📈 Solana: Brisk trade
🔐 Natural disasters: Keeping crypto safe
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What’s Poppin’?
By Tikta
TRUMP Memecoin Soars Then Sinks as MELANIA Launches
Incoming president Donald Trump's memecoin, TRUMP, surged to a market value of $14.9 billion on Sunday, briefly becoming one of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap.
The excitement proved to be short-lived, however, as returning first lady Melania Trump launched her own memecoin, MELANIA.
TRUMP’s value plummeted 40% within minutes of MELANIA's launch as traders sold their TRUMP holdings to buy the new coin.
The whole episode sparked an angry reaction on Crypto Twitter, with a user with the pseudonymous handle Flood likely speaking for many when he said on X: “Call me crazy but I'd rather my president not be a serial shitcoin peddler.”
X user Michael A Gayed was less restrained in his reaction, posting: “Unpopular opinion: what Trump is doing with $TRUMP and $MELANIA is A FUCKING DISGRACE.”
TRUMP had recovered some ground as of 6:30 a.m. ET Monday, and was down a more moderate 23.4% from its high of $72.62 around 7 a.m. ET Sunday, trading at $53.18, according to Coingecko data. MELANIA was still up more than 40% from its debut price of $7.43, but had softened 20% from its high of around $13 to change hands for $10.44.
Coinbase executive Conor Grogan said on X that Trump’s wife’s memecoin was structured differently from her husband’s, and appeared to have been funded by a wallet that traded on Pump.fun.
In another post, Grogan observed that Trump had sold $500 million worth of his tokens, and that the team still controls 85% of supply.
“Once [the launch of TRUMP] was confirmed, we saw one of those rare moments in crypto where a single asset becomes a liquidity black hole,” Mena Theodorou, co-founder of crypto exchange Coinstash, told Unchained in an email.
"It’s a pattern we’ve seen before, a lot like the Dogecoin run-up in early 2021,” she said. “The market was served with a curve ball, however, with the launch of MELANIA soon after disrupting this momentum. The new coin split the attention and money, leading to a big sell-off in Trump’s coin. This shows how fragile these hype-driven coins can be."
Daily Crypto Liquidations Top $1B Amid Market Volatility
Volatility related to the TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins led to cascading liquidations across crypto markets on Sunday, with total liquidations topping $1.17 billion during the 24 hours to around 11 p.m. ET on Sunday, according to data from CoinGlass.
Over the 12-hour period to the same time, bitcoin saw $161 million of liquidations, while ether saw $118 million.
Binance received the biggest single liquidation order, which nixes a BTC/USDT trading pair valued at $15.24 million.
Unsurprisingly, given the volatility of the TRUMP token, it was the most heavily liquidated position over a shorter timeframe of one hour to 11 p.m., with more than $1.38 million of liquidations.
Solana’s Daily Trading Volume Hits $39B
The Solana blockchain had a historic day for trading volume on Sunday, and the network was even briefly disrupted after a surge in activity caused by frenzied trading of TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins.
Solana processed $39 billion, with decentralized exchanges such as Raydium accounting for nearly $15 billion of volume, according to data from crypto research platform Blockworks.
The network also set a record for daily real economic value, a measurement of value accrual based on in-protocol transaction fees and out-of-protocol tips that surged to $56.9 million on Sunday.
Here’s How to Protect Your Crypto and Seed Phrases From Natural Disasters
Laura Shin sits down with Ari Gore, head of communications at ZenGo Wallet, to discuss how the crypto community can keep crypto assets secure.
Ari shares how the crypto industry can better help users protect their assets from natural disasters, emphasizing the need for more secure and user-friendly custody solutions.
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Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍
🔄👨💻 Vitalik Buterin announced at the weekend that “large changes” to the Ethereum Foundation’s leadership are coming, focusing on technical expertise, communication, and decentralisation, while rejecting calls for aggressive regulatory lobbying to maintain Ethereum’s neutrality.
🛑 The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation faces new allegations in a Coinbase-backed lawsuit, with claims of omitted crypto pause letters and accusations of thwarting Freedom of Information Act compliance, raising tensions over so-called “Operation Chokepoint 2.0,” an alleged crackdown on digital assets under the Biden administration.
⚖️ Digital Currency Group and former Genesis CEO Michael Moro agreed to pay $38.5 million to settle securities fraud charges with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, stemming from the companies’ handling of the Three Arrows Capital collapse in 2022, without admitting wrongdoing.
🪙 Trump-backed World Liberty Financial plans to acquire Tron’s TRX tokens for its treasury, strengthening its relationship with Tron founder Justin Sun, who has invested $75 million in World Liberty and serves as an adviser to it.
📈 And World Liberty Financial reported surging sales of its WLFI token, reaching $254 million after launching memecoins for Donald and Melania Trump, prompting the release of an additional 5% of token supply due to high demand.
💵 World Liberty Financial also added 14,403 ETH worth $48 million, bringing its total holdings to $109 million as Eric Trump hinted at upcoming initiatives after the launch of TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins.
💼 The Security and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Nova Labs, accusing it of selling unregistered crypto securities through Helium Network devices and data programs.
🛠️ Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade, set for March, will implement key improvements such as higher staking caps and enhanced account abstraction after testnets Sepolia and Holesky undergo February hard forks.
The $$$ Corner…
💵 EVAA Protocol, a DeFi lender on the TON network, raised $2.5 million in a private token sale to support its lending, borrowing, and staking services while preparing to launch its own EVAA token.
What Do You Meme?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is up 2.2%, trading at $106,869
ETH is up 3.6%, trading at $3,301
BTC dominance: 54.64%
Crypto market cap: $3.83T
*All data as of today, 07:54 am ET. Source: CoinGecko
Recommended Reads
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Economic freedom creates prosperity for all by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong
Yu Kheng Pek, a.k.a. Wassielawyer, a crypto lawyer specializing in restructuring and insolvency, on why he’s concerned about the industry after Trump launched a memecoin
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