This Week in Cryptocurrency: Trump Tariffs and DeepSeek Fuel Plunges, But Tether Is Coming

It was another action-packed year for Bitcoin, and the price of the gold is sitting perfectly above$ 100, 000 again—despite large swings fueled by the news cycle.

According to CoinGecko, the biggest digital asset is currently trading at$ 101, 880 following a challenging week. That’s a drop of almost 3 % over the past year.

The crypto industry hit after Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek released a new open-source big speech type late last year, which helped things go from bad to worse.

This potent and much more cost-effective type prompted tech investors to quickly sell their stakes in British AI-related businesses and crypto jobs. At one point, Bitcoin was priced as low as$ 98, 380 on Monday.

However, it quickly recovered, and the value rose up above the$ 100, 000 dot after Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, made the suggestion that a second interest rate cut was feasible if inflation remained subdued. His assertions that banks could manage blockchain services also sparked optimism.

But finally on Friday, expression that President Donald Trump’s taxes against Canada, Mexico, and China may begin Saturday helped drive Bitcoin and other resources over again. After nearly touching$ 106, 000 on Friday morning, BTC plunged below the$ 102, 000 mark that afternoon—and remains there as of this writing.

ETF travels

Last week was a huge year for Bitcoin, with cash flowing hard and fast into the fresh Bitcoin exchange-traded money —largely thanks to crypto-friendly President Donald Trump’s opening. Last year, practically$ 1.6 billion worth of assets were deposited into Bitcoin ETFs.

According to Farside Investors files, things slowed down this year as investors pulled nearly$ 458 million from the fund on Monday.

By Thursday, over half a billion had entered the vehicles—but that’s very slow going compared to last week, when investors pumped over$ 800 million into the ETFs on Tuesday alone.

Wire on Cryptocurrency

The announcement of electronic dollars on the Bitcoin system was perhaps the biggest news of the week for stablecoin huge Tether. The behind firm announced on Thursday that its native USDT coin may soon be accessible for both the Lightning Network and the bottom layer of Bitcoin.

USDT is the world’s best bitcoin, and Bitcoin is the country’s biggest crypto system. Elizabeth Stark, CEO of Lightning Labs, the business building the connectivity, said that “millions of folks will now be able to use the most open, safe bitcoin to deliver dollars internationally”.

Ripple vs. the Bitcoin supply?

Hardcore Bitcoiners are going after financial Ripple, as the company—whose owners made XRP—get flirty with President Trump.

Next year, the President signed an executive order on blockchain, but it didn’t specifically discuss Bitcoin—despite his battle promises to hoard the orange gold.

Then, Bitcoiners are alleging that Ripple is pushing to include XRP, the third-biggest crypto by market cap, in the new government’s “digital property stockpile”.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse responded to the allegations on X in a Monday post, writing that “if a]government ] digital asset reserve is created… it should be representative of the industry, not just one token”.

Trump’s new fintech eyes Bitcoin

Meanwhile, the President’s Trump Media and Technology Group said it would launch a financial services and fintech arm called Truth. Fi. According to the company’s announcement, Truth. Fi may buy” Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies or crypto-related securities”.

The$ 250 million in crypto will be in Charles Schwab’s hands, who will invest it using ETFs, despite the vague language.

While some of Trump’s recent actions were made in his official capacity as president and others were made by his own businesses or licensees, Bitcoin supporters who supported him during the campaign may be left with differing opinions.