The week in crypto: bitcoin tops $105,000, Trump’s memecoin and record mining difficulty

The leading cryptocurrency rose to $105,000, Donald Trump launched the TRUMP memecoin, mining difficulty hit a record high, and other events of the week. 

Back above a psychological level

On Monday bitcoin began with a dip, sliding from $95,000 to $90,000. By Tuesday, however, the coin had started a rapid rebound. 

In the early hours of 17 January the first cryptocurrency cleared the psychologically important $100,000 mark. Over the weekend it pushed above $105,000.

At the time of writing, digital gold trades at $104,500, up 10% over seven days. 

Other top-10 assets by market value fared less well, with a few exceptions. 

The standout gainer was Solana. The coin added 50% over the week, setting a new all-time high (ATH) at $293. The momentum reflected rising on-chain activity following the launch of Donald Trump’s memecoin. 

On 16 January Ripple’s cryptoasset XRP approached its ATH at $3.4. It has since eased to $3, for a 24% weekly gain. 

DOGE also broke out of its downtrend, adding 9.6%. 

Total market capitalisation stands at $3.72 trillion. Bitcoin dominance reached 55.5%, Ethereum 10.2%.

The president-elect’s memecoin 

On 18 January Donald Trump announced the launch of an “official” TRUMP memecoin on Solana. In under 48 hours the coin climbed to 15th by market value, with FDV at $71 billion. 

TRUMP’s 24-hour growth rate exceeds 200%, with trading volume at $24 billion. The asset has since corrected to $57. 

Despite the blistering rise, TRUMP sparked heated debate in the community. The main question concerns the project’s tokenomics. The available supply on day one was 200 million TRUMP out of a total issuance of 1 billion. Tokens are to unlock gradually over three years. 

The remaining 80% of supply belongs to companies linked to Trump. The first unlock of 36% of supply is scheduled in three months. 

Crypto investor and The Wolf Of All Streets podcast host Scott Melker noted that Trump’s memecoin is “a significant net-positive” for crypto, but “harmful for humanity”. 

“It’s a baseless money grab, not sure how you can argue with that. The future and former President of the United States launched a token […], and insiders bought up the supply. The remaining 80% also belong to them. They’re making billions. […] Donald Trump is likely to bring millions of new people into this space. Let’s just hope it doesn’t crash,” he wrote. 

Trump announced his token a few days before the inauguration on 20 January. 

Record difficulty

On 13 January, after the latest retarget, bitcoin mining difficulty rose by 0.61%. The metric reached a record 110.45 T.

The average hashrate for the period since the previous adjustment was 804.05 EH/s. On 17 January it fell to 784 EH/s. 

According to Hashrate Index, hashprice is $60 per PH per day.

Also this week, TheMiningMag reported that as of December 2024 public miners’ bitcoin reserves exceeded 92,000 BTC — an all-time high. Year-on-year the figure rose by ~136% from just over 39,000 BTC.

Leaders were MARA, Riot Platforms and Hut 8 thanks to a strategy of buying digital gold. 

What to discuss with friends?

• Courts in Irkutsk established damages from mining of 650 million rubles.
• Bitwise reported that one government is interested in bitcoin.
• The king ate the bishop: ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok lost in a chess tournament.
• Gary Gensler “never called” bitcoin and Ethereum securities.

Ethereum hard-fork timeline

Ethereum developers scheduled activation of the Pectra upgrade on mainnet for early-to-mid March. The decision was taken during the first All Core Developers Execution Call of 2025.

The upgrade entails a set of proposals, including improvements to account-abstraction technology, changes to validator operations, gas-fee optimisation and higher network performance.

Pectra is set to raise the maximum locked-stake limit for node operators from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH.

Developers are already actively testing the hard fork on the Mekong testnet. To streamline the process, they chose not to create new temporary test networks for proposed code changes. Instead, they are using shadow forks of the main testnets.

The final milestone will be Pectra’s activation on the Holesky test network on 19 February. 

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also reminded the community that the Ethereum Foundation is changing its governance structure. The process began almost a year ago. 

Tether’s global plans

The USDT issuer Tether was busy generating headlines this past week. The first was news of the firm obtaining a digital-asset service provider licence in El Salvador, as well as preparing to move its headquarters to the jurisdiction. 

The company believes the country is rapidly becoming a global crypto hub “thanks to forward-thinking policies, a supportive regulatory environment, and a growing bitcoin-savvy community”.

“This decision is the natural progression for Tether as it allows us to build a new home, foster collaboration, and strengthen our focus on emerging markets. […] El Salvador represents a beacon of innovation in the digital asset space,” added Paolo Ardoino, the company’s CEO.

The chief executive also told Bloomberg Television about prospects for expanding operations in the United States amid hopes for a friendlier crypto policy. However, he noted that they currently “need clarity and guidance in regulation”.

Ardoino added that the firm may exceed its 2024 profit plan, helped by bitcoin’s rally.

In addition, on 17 January Tether launched a cross-chain stablecoin, USDT0, on Kraken’s Ink L2. The issuer plans to turn the asset into a “unified liquidity layer” to simplify token transfers across the crypto ecosystem.

USDT0 enables seamless and secure cross-chain transactions without separate deployments, pools or intermediating solutions.

Also on ForkLog:

• Binance will tighten crypto deposit and withdrawal procedures for Poland.
• US authorities will return Bitfinex the stolen 94,643 BTC.
• Tether filed a lawsuit against Swan Bitcoin over its bitcoin-mining business.
• CoinGecko presented seven key takeaways from 2024.

What else to read?

In a new feature we explained the social side of AI-linked memecoins and how such tokens are reshaping our notion of money. 

Our weekly digest rounds up the main events in cybersecurity.