This Week on Crypto Twitter: Bitcoin Battered as Trump-Themed Tokens Dump
.August 11, 2024
Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt
Crypto Twitter scrambled at the start of the week as dire global economic numbers flooded the crypto market with a sea of red. Coming out of the weekend, renowned Bitcoin hater Peter Schiff said to brace for a “Crypto black Monday.”
#Bitcoin just sank below $58K. If it takes out it’s July low by tomorrow’s U.S. #StockMarket open, #BitcoinETFs will gap down by more than 15%, 30% below their Jan. highs. A loss of that magnitude may finally trigger mass ETF liquidations. If so, brace for a #Crypto black Monday.
“Bitcoin HODlers are in denial,” he noted later. “You guys are whistling past a crypto graveyard—don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Given the steep fall-off for traditional financial markets around the world, the price of BTC indeed plunged below $50,000 on Monday, falling 12% in 24 hours. While there was a lot of gnashing of teeth and despair to spare, plenty of Bitcoin faithful held firm, including MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor.
The worldwide financial turmoil brought many a rapid education in international finance and the Japanese yen, a subject in which crypto fanatics seemed to suddenly become experts.
[guy who’s just learned about the Yen carry trade] ah you see it’s all about the Yen carry trade
A brief distraction from the calamity? The long-awaited announcement of the winner of the “veepstakes,” when U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. For crypto bettors on the prediction market Polymarket, it was an upset pick, with the strongest odds favoring Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
The outcome sparked conversation about how accurate Polymarket—or prediction markets in general—might actually be.
polymarket had walz at 3% on friday; can we acknowledge that degenerate gamblers are maybe not always great predictors of the future?
By the middle of the week, crypto markets started to stabilize, with Solana seeing surprising strength. Missing from the recovery, however, was second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum, which continued to struggle even with new spot Ethereum ETFs on the market. Market watchers joked that Solana and Ethereum were both going to hit the same big, round number—just headed in opposite directions.
Perhaps not surprisingly, some of the biggest crypto buzz this week surrounded Donald Trump—or at least his family. Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., teased that “a big announcement” was coming for the crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) space.
Given the messy controversies surrounding Donald Trump and his newfound affection for Bitcoin and crypto—on top of an endless series of Trump-themed meme coins—more than a few people were skeptical. YouTube investigator Coffeezilla said it would just be a “new crypto grift.”
The announcement also sparked buzz about what it might be, and a significant segment of Crypto Twitter was ready to believe it would be an official token—unlike DJT, the last rumored token that turned out to have no proven connection to Trump. Very quickly, attention converged on a “Restore the Republic” (RTR) coin on Solana, and its market cap rocketed past $100 million.
Then Eric Trump popped the bubble with a warning about “fake tokens,” prompting RTR to collapse almost entirely.
The flash of hype ensnared a number of Crypto Twitter influencers and countless would-be investors—one of whom lost nearly $900,000.
In fact, it wasn’t the only Trump-themed meme coin to plunge last week. DJT, the other token briefly believed to be tied to the former U.S. President, also collapsed in price after a developer-linked wallet sold billions of tokens in what some traders categorized as a “rug pull.”
As the week ended, crypto investors looked back at the wild week and were relieved to see it wasn’t the end of the world. Prices rebounded, with Bitcoin popping above the $62,000 mark on Friday and other cryptocurrencies similarly clawing back their respective lost gains.
