Forbes: The five most controversial times of encryption in 2025
The year 2025 has been a difficult, worrying and inspiring year for politics and power in the realm of encrypted currency。
The year 2025 has been a difficult, worrying and inspiring year for politics and power in the realm of encrypted currency。
Submitted by: Becca Bratcher, Forbes
Photo by Saoirse, Foresight News
From the multibillion-dollar hacking to the presidential-level issue of Meme currency, 2025 was a year in which politics and power were at stake, both worried and inspiring. With the opening of the curtain in the fourth quarter of 2025, five moments stand out – they provide an insight into how the encryption money industry continues to explore the boundaries of public trust and regulatory tolerance。
Bitcoin had a record high in 2025, but the industry was still in dispute. (photo illustration: Miguel Candra / SOPA Images/ LightRocket, authorized by Getty Photo Society)
January: Trump Meme currency first appearance
In 2025, an unexpected move by the President-designate of the United States drew attention。
Just hours before the inauguration, Donald Trump launched the official Meme Dollar TRUMP. The token was first offered at about US$ 1 and then soared to more than US$ 70 and then collapsed. Soon after, the First Lady, Melanie Trump, also launched a personal token, Melania, whose price fluctuations are the same as TRUMP. To date, the TRUMP currency transaction price has remained at around $7, while MELANIA has hovered over $0.13。
These coins were promoted as "Celebrating Digital Collections", but once they were introduced they raised questions about ethics and legality. Trump, who had always been a big fan of encrypted money before, has now repositioned himself as an industry “sympathetic” – he has actively sought a growing constituency in the area of encrypted money and has promised to turn the United States into a global digital asset centre. At the same time, its family company, World Liberty Financial, expanded its business map in the area of encrypted currency。
In just a few hours, the total market value of the two Meme coins was close to $11 billion, which was the first major controversy in the encryption currency industry in 2025, as a purely political branding campaign。
February: The largest financial theft in history
Only a month later, public confidence in the security of encrypted currency was severely undermined。
Bybit, an encrypted currency exchange based in Dubai, disclosed that hackers had stolen about $1.5 billion in ETH from one of their offline cold wallets. This unprecedented security loophole left investors in a state of panic, followed by the block chain analysis company Elliptic, which confirmed that the case was the largest single theft ever recorded in digital and traditional finance。
Bybit Exchange (photo illustration: Thomas Fuller / SOPA Images/ LightRocket, authorized by Getty Photo Society)
A follow-up investigation revealed that the data leak was related to a hacker organization supported by the Government of the DPRK. This discovery adds instantaneously to the gravity of the geopolitical dimension of an event that might have been classified as a “security gap in the conventional exchange”。
May: United States President's Award for TRUMP Meme Top Buyer
In May, a news report triggered a "small but significant" surge in TRUMP Meme currency transactions - President Trump announced that only top holders of TRUMP coins would be invited to a regular dinner at his private golf club. This "exclusively paid participation" model actually transforms the token into a "competitive instrument": In this way, any person holding a sufficient number of coins has access to the President in private。
THE DINNER PARTICIPANTS INCLUDED SUN YAO, THE FOUNDER OF THE STUDIO, WHO HAD PREVIOUSLY INVESTED OVER $18 MILLION IN TRUMP COINS AND HAD FACED CHARGES (LATER SUSPENDED) FROM THE UNITED STATES SEC。
The incident provoked a double controversy: there was a rally of protesters outside the scene, which was closely examined by the United States Congress. Despite the White House's insistence that Trump's assets have been “blindly managed” (i.e., the assets are managed by a third party without personal direct intervention), analysis on the block chain shows that the entities associated with Trump control about 80 per cent of the remaining supply of the coin and earn over $320 million in handling fees through currency transactions。
U.S. House of Commons Members Adam Smith and Sean Casten led a joint effort by 35 House Democrats to address a letter to the Department of Justice requesting an investigation into Trump's conduct: whether providing TRUMP currency top investors with a "dinner together" opportunity would constitute a bribe or violate the "foreign pay clause" in the U.S. Constitution (which prohibits federal officials from receiving unauthorized remuneration from foreign governments or individuals)。
In their letter, they stated that the incident " opened the door to interference by foreign forces in United States policy decisions and could constitute corruption and a suspected violation of remuneration provisions " . This is just the latest example of President Trump ' s disregard for ethical norms, his exacerbation of conflicts of interest and his use of power to feed himself. I don't know
October: 10.11
Time is fast approaching October: a block chain analyst discovered that an anonymous trader suddenly made a bitcoin and an Ether factory just minutes before President Trump announced a new tariff on China. Trump’s tax escalation statement, however, directly triggered the largest “liquid waterfall” in the history of encrypted currency (i.e., a large amount of leverage has been forced to flatten prices due to their collapse, further exacerbating the chain reaction of falling prices)。
It was reported that the anonymous trader had benefited from $160 million before the market stabilized. Observers, including the commentator, The Kobeissi Letter, have publicly questioned: "Is anyone aware of the tax hike? I don't know
There is no direct evidence of “intellectual information leaks” yet, but the incident has once again raised public concern about the digital asset market – information asymmetries and interference in the market by political influence may be much more serious than expected。
October: A "profitable" pardon
Only a few weeks later, another controversy broke out: President Trump pardoned the founder of Bianan Zhao。
Zhao Chang Peng pleaded guilty to "anti-money laundering offences" in 2023 and served four months in prison; the Exchange itself also paid more than $4 billion in fines。
On April 30, 2024, former Chief Executive Officer Zhao Chang Peng left the US Federal Court in Seattle. Zhao Chang Peng, founder and former Chief Executive Officer of the largest encrypted currency exchange in the world, was sentenced on that day to four months ' imprisonment for admitting a violation of the AML law. (Photo by Jason Redmond/ Agence France-Presse, authorized by Gatti Photo Society)
The pardon not only removed Zhao Chang Peng ' s criminal record, but also removed obstacles to his return to the encryption industry. The White House explained that this was intended to correct the “over-regulated problem of the Biden government”。
HOWEVER, THE BBC REPORT FURTHER EXACERBATES THE CONTROVERSY: ZHAO CHANG PENG HAS WORKED WITH THE "TRUMP FAMILY ENCRYPTION MONEY PROJECT-RELATED ENTERPRISES". THIS ASSOCIATION HAS RAISED THE PUBLIC'S SUSPICION THAT THERE IS A TRADE-OFF BEHIND THE PARDON。
Objectively, the pardon further consolidated the “alignment” between the current United States Administration and the digital asset industry, while raising deeper questions as to the extent to which political influence would influence regulatory outcomes
Conclusion: Another "normal year" in encrypted currency
These five events together made 2025 another "headline year" in the encrypted money industry. Although the controversy continues, this year is far from being the "worst period" of the industry, compared to history。
The January Meme currency blurs the boundary between "fun" and "governance"; the February Bybit hacker incident exposes even the most trusted system with loopholes; the May dinner transforms "given currency possession" into a "political path" ; the October trading scandal reveals the manipulation of "speculation" and "time control" over the entire market; and the same month's presidential pardon makes 2025 the year of "legitimate and ethical boundaries" in the encrypted money industry。
Every year in the field of encrypted money is accompanied by new innovations, challenges, breakthroughs and disputes - 2025。