Morning Minute | The Biggest Day in Crypto History

TylerD's Market Summary

🇺🇸 Trump Signs Crypto Executive Order As Bullish Headlines Rain In

Expectations were high for crypto under the Trump administration and what change he could bring.

Well, not even the biggest bulls could have projected the impact he would have in just his first few days in office.

And yesterday, a perfect storm of news came in, likely cementing Jan 23, 2025 as one of if not the single most important days in crypto history.

What Happened?

Yesterday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled "Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology," establishing a Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets.

Led by venture capitalist David Sacks, the group will advise on crypto policy and explore creating a national reserve for digital assets, including Bitcoin.

The order also prohibits federal agencies from launching central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and affirms the rights of Americans to transact, self-custody, and mine cryptocurrencies.

But that's not all that happened:

• Cynthia Lummis (the author of the BITCOIN ACT) was appointed as chair of the Senate SubCommittee on Digital Assets
• David Sacks, leading of the Presidential Working Group, declared that NFTs and Memecoins are collectibles (removing doubts around how they could be classified) 
• The SEC repealed SAB 121, which had previously prevented Banks from custodying crypto

Years of progress, accomplished in a single day.

What Are They Saying?

Punk6529, on the Executive Order: "This is the single most impressive government document / order / guidance about crypto ever written. I have had the pleasure / displeasure of having read basically all of them, from every country in the world, over the last 10+ years Absolutely incredible work."

David Sacks, when asked if digital assets are securities: "Well, when you’re talking about digital assets, it can be multiple things. I mean, you’ve got digital assets that are securities, you’ve got digital assets that are commodities, you’ve got digital assets that are collectibles like NFTs or meme coins. So you’re talking about a whole vast area of innovation.” 

Why It Matters

How much time you got?

For starters, Trump’s executive order signals a significant pivot in U.S. crypto policy.

Innovation will be promoted, while safeguarding individual rights.

He banned CBDCs, removing one of the greater known ecosystem risks.

The strategic Bitcoin reserve opens up the gateways for global nation state adoption of Bitcoin and broader crypto (oh and it's more likely to have more backing with Lummis heading the Digital Assets sub-committee).

And that's just a few of the Executive Order impacts.

The SEC's repeal of SAB121 is also massive. Banks can now custody crypto, and we have seen all of the major banks express their interest in doing so this week at Davos for the WEF.

Banks custodying crypto means Bitcoin holders can use Bitcoin as collateral for loans, which will be one of the single biggest unlocks crypto has ever seen. And that's just the tip of the iceberg for what crypto integration into TradFi unlocks - it will be a massive capital boom.

And Sacks' comments on memecoins and NFTs was just the icing on the cake, removing any doubt around how this administration will view these 2 subsectors of crypto.

It was a big, big day.

In Michael Saylor's words:

"The Crypto Renaissance has officially begun."

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH NFT leaders were very red on the day following Azuki's ANIME airdrop; Punks even at 40 ETH, Pudgy -14% at 17.5, BAYC -7% at 13.9 ETH, Azuki -66% at 4 ETH
• Top movers included Abasho (+100%) and OnchainMonkey (+23%)
• BTC NFT leaders were mostly red; Bitcoin Puppets -6%, NodeMonkes 19%, OMB -5%, Quantum Cats +17%
• The Runes leaders were mixed; DOG +2% at $434M mc, PUPS -15% at $58M, BDC +10% at $36M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Macro Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are green this morning; BTC +3% at $105,300, ETH +6% at $3,400, SOL +9% at $266, XRP +4% at $3.19
• LDO (+19%), ONDO (+17%) & ENS (+10%) lead alts
• Morgan Stanley's CEO said the bank wants to get deeper into crypto by working with regulators to allow crypto transactions for their customers
• Crypto Czar David Sacks considers memecoins and NFTs as collectibles, as expressed during an interview on Fox Business
• Senator Cynthia Lummis was appointed as the chair of the Digital Assets Subcommittee
• Vitalik shared a post calling for L2 to to start supporting Ethereum and cement ETH as the primary asset of the "greater (L1 + L2) Ethereum economy"
• The Trump WLF team bought another $10M of ETH on the day
• Memecoin majors are mostly red; DOGE -6%, SHIBA -4%, TRUMP -15%, PEPE -7%, PENGU +2%, BONK -6%, FARTCOIN -15%
• A memecoin ALON named after the founder of Pump Fun ran from $1M to $200M in 20 minutes after an endorsement (now back to $50M)
• SAFEMOON was another memecoin runner of the night, soaring to $80M at peak within hours of launch, now back to $50M
• TOSHI was a huge winner on Base, pumping 73% to $235M after going live on Coinbase

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