The election of Donald Trump promises a new era for digital assets characterized by greater regulatory certainty and increased market activity. The question now is whether this change is sustainable or is a temporary reaction to the political climate.
According to CCData’s latest Exchange Review report, aggregate spot and derivatives volumes, the most common measure assessed to determine market share, posted a new annual high in 2024, far surpassing the previous record set in 2021 (75 trillion dollars versus 64 trillion dollars). With the election driving market activity and speculation, November and December were record months for volumes, with $10.51 trillion and $11.31 trillion in monthly volumes, respectively. For context, the average for 2024 (the largest year on record) was approximately $6.4 trillion.
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At the same time, stablecoins reached a total market capitalization of $210.1 billion, their highest point ever, on opening day, according to DeFiLlama. This reflects a year-to-date increase of 3.3% so far, thanks to improving liquidity conditions on centralized and decentralized exchanges, supporting the influx of new volumes seen in recent months.
“Made in the USA” assets have performed particularly well. These have been an outlier since the election, where a permissive regulatory environment and the promise of more favorable conditions for US-based assets have generated significant investor interest and speculation. Coins like XRP, SOL, XLM, and ALGO, which have a strong affiliation with the United States, have seen huge returns. According to CCData, the basket associated with these currencies increased by more than 360%, outperforming the market by a considerable margin. This marks a radical change from the previous administration’s regulatory crackdown, which kept them under scrutiny for many years, as they were finally deemed securities by the SEC.
Whether this unprecedented growth continues will depend largely on the execution of the new Trump administration’s promises regarding a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, incentives for domestic bitcoin mining, and other issues. The broader market may also benefit as we enter the expansion phase of bitcoin’s four-year historical cycle, which tends to see explosive growth in the last year.
It will be interesting to see if this new administration will affect the market cycles that the cryptocurrency sector has become accustomed to, or if it will mark a significant departure from historical trends.
