The report card of the "Crypto President" Trump: How many promises has he fulfilled in his first year in office?

Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Wenser (@wenser 2010)

On January 20, 2026, Trump celebrated the first anniversary of his inauguration as the 47th President of the United States. Over the past year, from the crypto market to the global economy, fluctuations and price changes seem often tied to him alone—one word can ignite market optimism and drive asset prices soaring; a single statement can also become a trigger for declines, sparking a chain of "liquidation bombs."

Today, he is referred to by many as the "Crypto President." So, what key actions did Trump take over the past year that not only defended this title but also solidified it step by step? Looking back, perhaps the following five major events can reveal the answer.

Major Event 1: Unprecedented, the President Launches a Meme Coin

On January 18, 2025, just before his inauguration, Trump's official Meme coin TRUMP was launched. Within just one day, the price of TRUMP skyrocketed from $0.5 to around $28, allowing a large number of cryptocurrency traders to earn unimaginable wealth, with some profits reaching millions or even tens of millions of dollars.

As the "eye of the storm," Trump's net worth surged dramatically—following the launch of the TRUMP token, his net worth soared over 400% overnight, reaching an astonishing $28 billion; in comparison, Forbes estimated Trump's net worth at only $5.6 billion in November 2024. Moreover, within less than three days, the TRUMP token's fully diluted valuation (FDV) once surged to nearly $80 billion, with prices approaching $80.

After experiencing the "Meme Coin Craze" of 2024, the crypto market welcomed the heavyweight political role of "President of the United States," once again breaking the "influence ceiling" of cryptocurrencies, as countless people pinned their hopes of overnight wealth on Trump and the TRUMP token.

After all, "the President of the United States launching a Meme coin" is a first in the cryptocurrency industry, marking a groundbreaking moment.

However, the flip side of overnight wealth is a ruthless harvest—countless people’s enthusiasm for the "Presidential Meme Coin" could only delay its downward trend, unable to support its continuous rise.

On January 23, most TRUMP token holders were still at break-even or had profits/losses within $1,000; but by early February, as TRUMP trading activity waned and prices plummeted, the number of wallet addresses with losses reached an astonishing 200,000.

According to Chainalysis statistics, about 810,000 wallets lost money on the TRUMP token, totaling over $2 billion, with an average loss of $2,500 per person. In contrast, as of May 2025, the issuers of the TRUMP token (Fight Fight Fight LLC and CIC Digital) alone made over $320 million from transaction fees; not to mention the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of TRUMP tokens they held.

The emergence of TRUMP can be seen as an expensive and heavy "crypto elective course," and its subsequent impacts extend beyond token price performance:

First, after TRUMP, the market's enthusiasm for celebrity coins was reignited. Countless people rushed to buy the Meme coin MELANIA, named after Trump's wife, and the Meme coin LIBRA endorsed by Argentine President Milei, with even the President of the Central African Republic wanting a piece of the action, but ultimately ending in liquidity harvesting as well;

Second, TRUMP became "ironclad evidence of Trump's corruption" in the eyes of Democrats. This accusation was specifically elaborated in a report in the second half of 2025 and marked the beginning of Trump's demonstration of a "crypto-friendly regulatory attitude," with disputes between the two sides continuing to this day;

Third, the TRUMP token became the "best medium" for Trump to engage with cryptocurrency industry figures. On one hand, Trump used it to convey his "pro-cryptocurrency political stance" to the outside world; on the other hand, TRUMP became the "currency vehicle" for deep exchanges between Trump and cryptocurrency industry figures.

In April 2025, registration for the “Trump Dinner” for the top 220 TRUMP holders officially opened, triggering a $2.4 billion on-chain transfer within just a few days, with TRUMP's price rising by 60%, and on-chain activity surging by 200%. Many people were willing to spend millions just to meet Trump. Ultimately, TRUMP Meme coin buyers invested a total of about $148 million in the holding competition, with an average holding of nearly $4.8 million in TRUMP, among which, Sun Yuchen ranked first with over 1.43 million tokens.

On one side are the retail investors paying for the "Presidential Concept Meme Coin"; on the other side is the "crypto dinner" filled with toasts and exchanges, resembling a "crypto version of the rich and poor," revealing the most brutal yet very real aspect of the crypto market—some are happy while others are sad, only the big players are laughing.

Major Event 2: "New Officials Start with Three Fires," Layoffs, Appointments, and Excluding Dissent

On January 21, 2025, Beijing time, Trump officially took the oath of office as the 47th President of the United States, becoming another recipient of the honor of "being elected President of the United States twice" after Washington, Roosevelt, and Obama.

What followed was naturally the political drama of "a new emperor brings new ministers." With the experience of the previous U.S. president's inauguration, Trump acted quite shrewdly in personnel appointments:

Step One: "Kill the Chicken to Scare the Monkeys." As Trump previously stated at the Bitcoin conference, on his first day in office, he decisively fired former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who had implemented high-pressure crypto regulations, solidifying his strong persona as "pro-cryptocurrency."

Step Two: "Install Loyalists." Within just three months, Trump quickly organized his personnel team and placed individuals who shared his political views, owned cryptocurrency assets, or held a crypto-friendly attitude into key government departments, including White House AI and crypto advisor David Sacks, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Step Three: "Prepare for a Protracted War." As the Federal Reserve Chairman appointed by Trump, Powell has always been seen as the "mainstay of Federal Reserve policy," but his hawkish fiscal strategy contradicted Trump's desire to release liquidity and stimulate economic growth through interest rate cuts. Thus, their disputes spanned the entire year of 2025—from April 2025, Trump frequently criticized Powell for needing to cut rates early; by December 2025, the nomination battle for the new Federal Reserve Chairman remained a major focal point affecting the crypto market and even the U.S. economy.

Looking back at Trump's personnel appointments and management of government departments, it is hard to view him as a smooth-talking, compromise-seeking politician; on the contrary, based on the final results, Trump always achieved his political goals through various means, sometimes even at the expense of so-called "greater good." The "longest government shutdown in U.S. history," which lasted 43 days, was also one of Trump's "political masterpieces."

However, from another perspective, all of Trump's actions had very clear objectives—to eliminate the remnants of the Democratic Party from the previous Biden administration and lay a political foundation for crypto-friendly regulation. With these people in place, a series of "old cases" could be concluded—judicial investigations into crypto platforms such as Coinbase, Gemini, Robinhood, Ripple, Crypto.com, Uniswap, Yuga Labs, and Kraken were successively concluded, and the U.S. Department of Justice's National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which had consistently implemented high-pressure regulations, was also disbanded, marking the end of the Biden administration's "crypto suppression actions."

After all, just like cleaning the house before inviting guests, removing a batch of old officials and promoting a new batch of "insiders" is essential for government agencies to operate efficiently like a machine, preparing adequately for future legislative and enforcement work on crypto-friendly regulations.

Major Event 3: "Creating History with Decrees," Establishing BTC Strategic Reserves and Promoting Legislation of Three Major Crypto Bills

If the first two major events were necessary preparations for "crypto-friendly regulation," then the third major event is a necessary component of "crypto-friendly regulation"—that is, implementing crypto-friendly regulation at the legislative and enforcement levels through executive orders and legal provisions. This series of historic breakthroughs is the biggest reason Trump is referred to as the "Crypto President."

Issuing Presidential Executive Orders to Promote the Establishment of U.S. BTC Strategic Reserves through Seized Assets

In March 2025, Trump issued a presidential executive order to promote the establishment of a BTC strategic reserve in the United States. This marked the first time that the United States, as the world's leading economic power, officially reserved BTC and other crypto assets in the name of the national government, which also implied that BTC had, in a sense, attained a strategic reserve status equivalent to that of gold. Although Trump chose a more opportunistic approach to advance this matter (Odaily Planet Daily Note: by establishing the BTC strategic reserve using nearly 200,000 BTC previously seized by the U.S. government, while stating that national assets would not be utilized or the burden on citizens increased), its impact cannot be understated.

On one hand, the U.S. BTC strategic reserve set an example for many sovereign nations to incorporate BTC and other crypto assets into their national economic systems, further expanding the mainstream adoption and popularization of BTC and other crypto assets; on the other hand, this move also provided a model for more DAT treasury companies and offered national-level endorsement for the fiscal strategies of BTC treasury companies like Strategy and Metaplanet. Subsequently, from July to September 2025, a large number of publicly listed companies followed suit in establishing BTC, ETH, and SOL treasuries, to some extent influenced by this event.

Signing the Stablecoin Genius Act "GENIUS Act," Consolidating Dollar Hegemony

In July 2025, Trump officially signed the Stablecoin Genius Act "GENIUS Act," marking the beginning of a golden era for stablecoins.

Specifically, the act provided detailed regulatory definitions and implementation rules for stablecoins, which had previously been vaguely defined and lacked regulatory oversight, covering aspects such as payment stablecoin definitions, dual licensing regulation, 100% reserve requirements, mandatory transparency disclosures, anti-money laundering compliance, user protection priorities, and clear regulatory authority.

At the same time, this act is not only the first federal-level stablecoin legislation in U.S. history but also the first cryptocurrency legislation signed by a U.S. president, making its historical status and industry significance particularly unique. Of course, the stablecoin system, deeply tied to the dollar, also aligned with Trump's "America First" political strategy, further solidifying the dollar's hegemonic position in the global economic system.

As a result of the passage of the Stablecoin Genius Act and other favorable influences, the price of BTC surged past $110,000, reaching a new historical high; on the other hand, the Stablecoin Genius Act also fueled Circle's crypto IPO, helping its stock price soar from around $30 at IPO to nearly $300, a tenfold increase. This single piece of good news spurred rapid development in the U.S. stock market's stablecoin sector, the stablecoin track in Hong Kong, and the global stablecoin, PayFi, and crypto payment sectors.

Additionally, under Trump's strong push, the other two major crypto bills, the "CLARITY Act" and the "Anti-CBDC (Digital Dollar) Act," were also passed through House votes, marking a solid step forward in cryptocurrency legislation. As promised earlier, Trump set an example again by clarifying the classification and regulatory jurisdiction of digital assets, promoting the development of the DeFi industry; he rejected the establishment of a central bank digital dollar, protecting the self-custody rights of American citizens' digital assets.

To this day, although the "CLARITY Act" has temporarily stalled due to opposition from Coinbase and Senate approval obstacles, the numerous breakthroughs at the legal level compared to the previous "historic void" already represent a historic moment.

Perhaps Trump, having served as president twice, understands that compared to various law enforcement activities at the time of taking office, solidifying his governance agenda and political will in the form of legislation is a more lasting and effective political means.

Major Event 4: Wielding Tariffs, Market Volatility, Crypto Market Becomes a Stage for Insider Trading

If the above major events showcase the beneficial role Trump played in the crypto market, then the mention of "tariff sticks" is likely to elicit frowns from many in the crypto community, including myself.

The reason is simple: whenever Trump initiates a trade war with external tariffs or releases hawkish signals, both the crypto market and traditional financial markets tend to plummet, leading to significant losses. It is no wonder that many lament that when Trump starts a tariff trade war, it is ultimately the wallets of users in the crypto circle that pay the price.

In April, August, and October 2025, the three large-scale tariff trade wars initiated by Trump dealt heavy blows to the crypto market—

In April last year, Trump initiated global reciprocal tariffs and general tariffs, with tariff levels increasing by over 10%, affecting multiple EU countries; he even proposed raising tariffs on China to 125% and suspending tariffs on friendly nations. As a result, the cryptocurrency market saw a single-day drop of up to 10% in market value. The U.S. stock market lost $6 trillion in value within a few days, with countless stocks suffering significant losses;

In August last year, Trump signed the latest tariff executive order, deciding to impose tariffs of 15% to 41% on imported goods from 67 trading partners, raising the overall tax rate to its highest level in over a century. This led to a setback in the cryptocurrency market, with the three major cryptocurrencies BTC, ETH, and SOL experiencing a single-day drop of about 5%, significantly retreating from historical highs; subsequently, the tariff order was paused for 90 days;

In October last year, Trump launched another tariff war, causing U.S.-China trade relations to cool again. As a result of this news, BTC dropped over 13%, ETH over 17%, and numerous altcoins fell by more than 30%; compounded by factors such as exchange flash crashes and liquidations, the crypto market saw a single-day liquidation scale of up to $20 billion, with real estimated liquidation funds reaching $30-40 billion.

Statistics show that in 2025, the average effective tariff rate in the U.S. rose to 27%, the highest level in nearly 100 years, triggering retaliatory policies from major global economies and disrupting the supply chains of the global economic system.

The repeated tariff trade wars brought not only panic in the crypto and traditional financial markets but also a chain reaction of declines driven by fear. Moreover, amidst the severe market fluctuations caused by tariffs, insiders with access to inside information engaged in long and short trading, reaping substantial financial returns, casting a shadow over the normal order of the crypto market.

It is worth mentioning that the rampant insider trading and Trump's erratic tariff policies contributed to the emergence of the term "TACO trading" in the crypto market (Odaily Planet Daily Note: Trump Always Chickens Out, referring to his initial hardline stance for interests, followed by a softening of attitude and a shift to dovishness). Countless crypto whales leveraged this expectation to engage in long and short battles in Hyperliquid and CEX, harvesting their share of wealth from the crypto market.

To this day, the "10·11 Insider Whale" Garrett Jin remains active in the market and is regarded as an insider figure associated with the Trump family or Trump faction. In addition to his operations in the contract market, his early bet on "Trump pardoning CZ" is also seen as one of the pieces of evidence for "insider trading."

Major Event 5: Family Wealth Soars, Pardoning Binance Founder CZ

Compared to the somewhat rampant insider trading, another point of criticism against Trump is his family's crypto project WLFI and a series of highly controversial crypto business layouts. Additionally, last October, Trump's pardon of CZ sparked widespread discussion in the market.

Trump's "Wealth Formula": Family Wealth Increased by $1.4 Billion in One Year

According to Bloomberg, over the past year, crypto assets have added approximately $1.4 billion to the Trump family's wealth, with cryptocurrencies now accounting for about one-fifth of the family's total net worth of approximately $6.8 billion.

During Trump's second term, the Trump family achieved significant gains through their jointly founded crypto platform World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the Meme coin named after him (TRUMP), and the Bitcoin mining company American Bitcoin Corp. (ABTC), among other new projects. The platform token WLFI and the stablecoin USD1 business of World Liberty saw significant valuations.

At the same time, the stock price of Trump Media & Technology Group fell by 66% over the past year, partially offsetting the gains from crypto assets; family members also invested in companies like SpaceX through the venture capital firm 1789 Capital and expanded the global real estate licensing business of the Trump Group.

As for the Meme coin MELANIA, named after Trump's wife and issued after the TRUMP coin, it barely counts as a footnote. Additionally, according to a personal financial document disclosed by Trump in June 2025, as of January 2025, Trump personally held approximately 15.7 billion WLFI tokens, which, at current prices, are still valued at about $2.6 billion.

In just one year in office, Trump and his family amassed wealth amounting to billions of dollars through business expansion, political donations, and various cleverly named activities and dinners, prompting admiration: no wonder they are a presidential family with a background in real estate.

Trump Exercises Presidential Privilege to Pardon CZ: A Handshake Between Crypto Regulation and Government Power

Another noteworthy event is Trump's pardon of Binance founder CZ.

On the evening of October 23, 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump pardoned Binance founder CZ, who recently expressed sympathy for the political persecution narratives related to CZ and others to his advisors. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt stated that Trump "exercised the power granted by the Constitution to pardon Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted during the Biden administration." She added: "The Biden administration's war on cryptocurrency is over." Thus, CZ's previous four months of imprisonment and Binance's $4 billion fine were finally vindicated.

Of course, due to the deep business interactions between Binance and WLFI (Odaily Planet Daily Note: Previously, Binance accepted a $2 billion investment from the UAE sovereign fund MGX, with the funds being in the form of the stablecoin USD1 issued by Trump's family crypto project WLFI), and since Binance had hired lobbyist Ches McDowell, who has close ties to Trump's eldest son Trump Jr., to assist in seeking a pardon, the crypto market and even some Democratic senators in the U.S. have questioned whether there were any bribery or corruption involved, leading to widespread skepticism about the political favors involved in pardoning CZ.

As of today, this matter has come to a close, but speculation and criticism regarding Trump's abuse of power for personal gain and family profit remain rampant.

Conclusion: Trump Has Never Changed, Always a Businessman-Type Politician

Regardless of external opinions, Trump, as the president of a country, remains firmly in control, fulfilling his duties while enjoying his power. Throughout his nearly 80 years of life, his fundamental character may have never changed—he has always been a businessman who believes in value exchange and prioritizes interests.

As for the title of "Crypto President" and the vision of "making America the world's crypto capital," these are merely accessories to Trump's maximization of the role of crypto assets.

For this pure-blooded octogenarian American, "America First" remains the survival philosophy he believes in.