Over $200B lost in crypto markets after Trump's inauguration speech

Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th President of the United States has triggered a significant downturn in the cryptocurrency markets, wiping out over $200 billion in total market capitalisation.

Despite widespread anticipation that Trump would address cryptocurrency during his inauguration speech, he made no mention of the digital asset sector, leading to immediate market reactions.

As the ceremony commenced, Bitcoin's (CRYPTO:BTC) price dropped sharply from over $107,000 to below $102,000 within minutes.

Although Bitcoin briefly recovered to $105,000 during the speech, it fell again to around $100,500 after it became clear that Trump would not discuss cryptocurrencies.

The crash affected many altcoins severely, including Trump's own recently launched meme coin, which saw its value decline by more than 20% in just an hour.

At its peak earlier in the day, this coin had surpassed $70 but struggled to maintain its value above $40 following the speech.

Other cryptocurrencies also suffered losses, with numerous tokens including SPX (CRYPTO:SPX), FARTCOIN (CRYPTO:FARTCOIN), and LINK (CRYPTO:LINK) dropping more than 6% within the same timeframe.

The overall crypto market cap fell from a high of approximately $3.85 trillion to around $3.6 trillion during this period.

Liquidations soared to nearly $200 million as almost 400,000 traders were affected by the market downturn.

The fallout from Trump’s failure to address crypto has raised concerns among investors who had hoped for supportive policies from his administration.

While some analysts had speculated that Trump’s presidency would usher in a more favorable environment for cryptocurrencies, this event has cast doubt on those expectations.