The X account for Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs appears to have been disabled on Monday after allegations of a rug pull surfaced.One crypto trader alleged that Cuba had launched three different memecoins.
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Arthur Hayes, the chief investment officer of cryptocurrency venture capital firm Maelstrom, says he doubts Donald Trump’s government will get around to creating a strategic Bitcoin reserve, a policy many crypto enthusiasts are pinning their hopes on.“I don't think Trump will get around to doing a bitcoin reserve,” Hayes, the co-founder and former CEO of BitMex, said in an interview. “At the end of the day, I don't know how borrowing money to buy bitcoin helps on any of Trump's platforms.”Trump certainly sees the benefit crypto can bring him, having launched a couple of lucrative meme coins (crypto tokens with no utility other than to be volatile speculative instruments) prior to his inauguration. For hardline Bitcoin supporters, a U.S. strategic reserve held in BTC would be something of an apotheosis for the most valuable token.Hayes said, “I hope I’m wrong,” regarding the implementation of a BTC reserve. But he pointed to the limited time frame before the midterm elections, which could restrict the ability to implement substantial policy changes, as well as the fact there are many other things to allocate time and money to.“You have so much borrowing capacity before you destroy the bond market. Are you gonna borrow money to buy bitcoin? Are you gonna borrow money to give health care to the seniors who voted you in, or to build more bombs so that the defense lobby likes you?” Hayes said.“There's a lot of different things you can borrow money to spend it on. I just don't think that he's going to spend it on bitcoin. Whilst as important as bitcoin bros think they are, there's a lot of other interested parties that want that borrowed money to go into their pockets,” he added.Hayes could be called a contrarian. Impish irreverence when it comes to investing via his new Maelstrom fund – “We love undervalued shits” [shitcoins] – is underpinned by penetrating insights into macro-economics, with particular pessimism about the ways governments erode the wealth of everyday folk.Maelstrom mostly writes checks in the $50,000-$100,000 range at the seed stage of crypto projects and acquires tokens rather than equity; recent successes included investing in Ethena Labs, the stablecoin project.Speaking about Maelstrom’s investment thesis, Hayes said: “Let's not kid ourselves, it's raw speculation. Most of these things will be zeros. And so I don't want to dress it up in some sort of highfalutin language. We’re speculating.”
Crypto markets saw wild price swings on Monday during Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony as heightened excitement turned to disappointment after he declined to mention crypto during his first speech.The broad-market crypto benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index fell over 5% during the ceremony, while bitcoin (BTC) dipped to $101,000 from $106,000 before stabilizing around $103,000. Layer-1 network Solana (SOL), which was at the center of the weekend crypto frenzy of Trump-related memecoins, led losses among altcoin majors, down nearly 10% from its recent lifetime record.TRUMP, Donald Trump's official memecoin which launched Friday on Solana, tanked 30% from $50 during Trump's speech. It later recovered some of its losses but was still down roughly 20% from its session high. MELANIA — the token named for First Lady Melanie Trump and launched one day after TRUMP — plummeted as much as 46% before paring some of the losses.Bitcoin Fades From Highs After No Crypto Mentions During Trump's Inauguration SpeechThe volatility also flushed leveraged crypto trading positions en masse, liquidating over $700 million of derivatives across all digital assets on exchanges through Monday, CoinGlass data shows. Nearly $500 million worth of liquidated positions were longs betting on prices to rise.Including the overnight selloff before the inauguration brings the total liquidations over $1.2 billion in the past 24 hours, marking the biggest leverage wipeout of this year.Anticipation for Trump's presidency was immense in the crypto industry, expecting friendlier policies towards digital assets after years of regulatory uncertainty and clampdown. However, the launch of Trump-affiliated meme tokens only days before he entered office unleashed a speculative frenzy on crypto trading platforms and irked several prominent figures in and outside the industry.“It’s absolutely preposterous that he would do this,” Nic Carter, founding partner at the crypto investment firm Castle Island Ventures, told Politico. "They’re plumbing new depths of idiocy with the memecoin launch.”Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, was the latest to denounce the action."This meme coin represents the worst of crypto and shows why many regulators, advocates, and policymakers have long been worried," she said in a Monday statement. "These actions by President Trump will also further taint the crypto industry, which has long fought for legitimacy and a level playing field with other financial institutions."
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Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th President of the United States marks a “pivotal moment” for crypto, with bold policy changes anticipated, according to industry experts.Donald Trump’s inauguration follows the high-profile and controversial launch of his official Solana-based memecoin, TRUMP, during the premiere Crypto Ball in Washington on Friday night. WLFI token sales for the Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial DeFi project surged to more than $250 million on Sunday from $91 million the day before, driven by renewed interest amid the memecoin launches.The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.