Crypto Market Reactions: The Impact of Musk and Trump’s Feud on Bitcoin and Ethereum

Well, on the heels of a better than expected US jobs report here in the US for the month of May, we're looking at Bitcoin back above 10, 4500 and also recovering the 2500 level.

But we have to keep in mind that Bitcoin and E are still lower over the last five days, and this week's price action, we saw a high risk leverage trader James Wynn liquidating several times.

In his very strong Bitcoin positions, he's accused market makers of targeting him and crypto sinking yesterday amid Elon Musk and President Trump's escalating feud.

But while the crypto majors lagged, one stablecoin company shined yesterday.

Circle IPOed right here at the New York Stock Exchange soaring by 168%.

The stock opened at $69. well above its $31 offering price.

Joining me at the end of a very busy week is Gareth Jenkinson, managing director at Coin Telegraph.

So happy Friday to you, Gareth.

Thank you so much for joining me.

So what do you make of what we're seeing in terms of price action for crypto and how much impact does the drama, the fallout between Trump and Musk actually have on the crypto market?

Yeah, I think it, it's pretty clear to see that there's been an immediate impact um on Bitcoin and Ethere in particular.

Our analysts are telling us that, uh, you know, the crypto market cap fell by 2.3% over the past 24 hours, down to 3.2 trillion.

And we saw over $980 million in cryptocurrency futures liquidated.

Obviously a lot of those people were holding long positions.

We're looking at about $874 million in longs being liquidated.

So a lot of pain for people that were expecting some upside going into the weekend, mainly due to the uncertainty caused by this very, very public feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

And Gareth, as you mentioned, we'll continue to monitor social media and what Trump says in response to Elon Musk.

But I do want to shift our focus on over to the IPO that we had here at the New York Stock Exchange, and that is circle.

So what does circle going public mean for the crypto industry in terms of adoption?

Look, I think it's, it's a massive big green tick, uh, for the industry in general, you know, to have one of the, the, the 2nd biggest stablecoin operator going public in America.

Um, the success of the IPO itself speaks for itself, raising $1.1 billion you know, trading as high as $103.

Circle, uh, currently sits around $65 billion worth of tokenized dollars.

Um, you know, Ted is still very much leading the way, but they're not operating in the US.

They're not listed in the US.

So for a big A cryptocurrency company to go public and to get this much interest 10 times oversubscribed bodes really, really well for the industry and I wouldn't be surprised if we see a handful of the major cryptocurrency companies in the United States go public in the next 12 to 24 months just seeing how successful Circle has been in 24 hours and the fanfare around there listing at the New York Stock Exchange.

You guys got to witness it firsthand, so it must have been really exciting to see that in person.

Yeah, Gareth, absolutely it was really exciting, especially given that we saw many familiar faces from the crypto industry here at the New York Stock Exchange, basically the who's who in early adopters in the world of crypto, but you've been busy as well, Gareth.

You were at Money 2020 in Amsterdam this week and you're also at Bitcoin 2025 in Vegas.

So what are some of the key takeaways here and you not just talked about crypto but also about living forever with your interview with Brian Johnson there.

So what did you learn about immortality and Bitcoin?

Well, what I can tell you is Bitcoin is gonna be around for a long time.

There's a finite amount of it and uh if you're like Brian Johnson and you want to live forever.

You might want to own some Bitcoin, and that was kind of a key takeaway from my interview there.

I think my general take from Bitcoin in 2025 in Las Vegas last week is that institutions need Bitcoin and they're adopting Bitcoin.

The rise of these Bitcoin treasury companies, 21, Nakamoto, strategy, made a Planet, they're all very much showing that corporate treasuries need Bitcoin on their balance sheet.

And there's a lot of upside that can be gained by tapping into the store of value potential of Bitcoin, and that's why you're seeing so many of these big companies putting Bitcoin on their balance sheets.

We're seeing politicians get involved in Bitcoin as well.

They clearly understand that a lot of people are turning to Bitcoin even if it's a risk or a risk on assets as a store of value and some sort of a hedge against, you know, currency devaluation.

And that's something very interesting to watch.

And then Money 2020, really great to see cryptocurrency and blockchain becoming more and more a part of Tradfy.

And it was great to chat to your team on the ground, meet Vince in person and talk a bit more about our partnership, sharing some contents on either platform.

So it's been a really exciting two weeks and I must say I'm very, very excited for what the future holds for our industry.

Well, Gareth, we're also excited about the partnership with Poin Telegraph, so we will have to leave it there, but a lot of exciting things coming down the pike.

So thank you so much for joining us and have a great weekend.

Thanks for having me.