The promise of a pro-crypto regulatory environment led by the incoming administration of the United States President Donald Trump has triggered a positive effect among cryptocurrencies, with the native assets of layer-1 blockchains raking in substantial gains.

According to a CryptoQuant report, crypto assets like XRP, TRX, Toncoin (TON), SOL, ADA, the native assets of Ripple, Tron Network, The Open Network, Solana, and Cardano, respectively, have witnessed significant rallies since the conclusion of the U.S. presidential elections.

Layer-1 Coins on the Rise

Ripple’s native cryptocurrency, XRP, has surged over 120% to $1.40 since the elections, crushing the $1 mark for the first time in three years. Data from CoinMarketCap shows the asset is up more than 166% monthly and 25% daily, a growth partly fueled by a resignation update from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Gary Gensler.

The SEC and Ripple have been involved in a legal battle for years, and Gensler’s departure could ease the digital asset infrastructure developer’s concerns.

The rise in the value of XRP coincides with decentralized exchange (DEX) activity on the network hitting a new all-time high and total active addresses spiking to the highest daily level since early 2024. CryptoQuant found that DEX volume on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) reached $3.5 million on November 15, with participation from 80 traders. Ripple launched this new automated market maker DEX in May to support the chain’s limit order book DEX.

Tron Network’s native token, TRX, also hit a multi-year high of $0.20 and is up almost 10% weekly. Tron has witnessed a steady growth in transaction activity, driven by the use of Tether (USDT). This year, the network’s daily transaction count rose to a new high of 10 million, while the total supply of USDT hit a record high of over $60 billion.

Daily Spot Volume Surges

In addition, Toncoin’s value increased by 39% amid the high level of activity and stablecoin liquidity on The Open Network. Daily active addresses on the network now hover around one million, up significantly from 60,000 at the start of the year. CryptoQuant also attributed this growth to the integration of USDT on TON in April. The stablecoin has become one of the most active assets on the network, with a circulating supply above $1 billion.

SOL has rallied to an all-time high of $263, while ADA is up 160% to levels last seen in March 2024.

CryptoQuant added that the surge in altcoin prices came with a spike in daily spot trading volume. On November 11, the metric reached one of the highest levels recorded this year.

The world’s leading cryptographic currency is trading over 40% higher than its average price on the eve of the November 5th US elections.

Analysts agree that this is owing in large part to the promises of the Trump campaign and its allies to ensure that the federal government is fair to the innovative new Internet industry. But it’s also a repeat of a historic pattern in Bitcoin’s 4-year market supply cycle.

Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood recently doubled down on her 2030 price target for Bitcoin. Last week, she told CNBC’s audience that if history continues to repeat itself, BTC will trade at $1 million by 2030.

The blockchain money industry says that’s good news for the economy as well as the secure layer of the Internet they’re building for financial transactions. But not everyone agrees.

Peter Schiff Casts Shade on Web3 Macro Economics

The more resources Americans misallocate to #Bitcoin and #crypto-related businesses, the fewer resources will be available to devote to making stuff we actually need. The end result will be larger trade deficits, a weaker dollar, higher inflation, and a lower standard of living.

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) November 20, 2024

Peter Schiff, founder and chief strategist of the Euro Pacific macro hedge fund, said in a post on X Wednesday that money spent on Bitcoin is a “misallocation” that will lead to inefficiencies in the economy. Schiff added that larger trade deficits, a weaker dollar, and lower GDP are the health of the Bitcoin regime.

In another post Wednesday, Schiff remarked that Bitcoin will ironically become a source of inflation, even as buyers use the cryptocurrency as a shelter from dollar inflation.

It’s ironic that many people bought #Bitcoin to hedge against inflation and a weakening dollar. Now, if the U.S. government actually buys Bitcoin, and diverts even more of our scarce resources to crypto, Bitcoin itself will become the source of more inflation and dollar weakness.

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) November 19, 2024

How Bitcoin Helps the Fed Do its Job

Schiff may be getting tangled up in the terminology of inflation. It’s a forgivable error. Bitcoin’s role in the ecosystem is so novel it’s still difficult to comprehend, even for a capable economist like the founder of the Euro Pac.

Rising business and consumer costs from low-rate dollar environments are the inflation that cryptocurrency users use Bitcoin to protect and grow their wealth. Rising BTC prices represent the dollar’s inflation and Bitcoin’s relative deflation.

(BTC is inflationary, but far less so than the dollar when the Federal Reserve cuts rates.)

So, will more investment in Bitcoin actually goose the trade deficit with China and US dollar inflation while slowing new supplies of goods and services that people use money to buy?

Every dollar sent to Bitcoin instead of overseas to China for imports actually helps balance the trade deficit. Meanwhile, it’s not Bitcoin that causes dollar inflation; the Federal Reserve increases the dollar supply to target lower borrowing costs.

Since resolving the financial crisis of 2008, the Fed has actually been terrified that the money supply isn’t keeping up with GDP. The danger of the resulting deflation is a potential debt devaluation spiral that could mire the economy into an intractable depression.

Bitcoin actually supports the central bank in this regard by locking up excess savings in a digital economy that incentivizes participants to “hodl,” not to spend their surplus earnings.

If they were spending all that crypto market cap worth of surplus value, it could drive up prices, ceterus paribus, and make life harder for fixed-income households to manage.

After several days of charting new peaks and coming less than $200 away from $100,000, bitcoin’s price has taken a breather and has dropped by over four grand since Friday’s high.

Several of the high-flying altcoins on Saturday have reversed their trajectory as well, with XRP, DOGE, and ADA dumping hard from the larger caps.

CryptoPotato reported yesterday BTC’s impressive surge that resulted in the asset exceeding $99,800 on most exchanges to chart its latest all-time high. While the community was preparing for a run toward and beyond $100,000, though, the cryptocurrency lost its momentum and started to retrace.

At first, it dropped to $98,000 on Sunday, as reported earlier, but the bears kept the pressure on and bitcoin fell even further to under $96,000. Its market cap has slipped below $1.9 trillion after losing over $60 billion since Friday.

Many altcoins have dumped even harder in the past day, though. XRP is the leader after dropping by 11% from its local peak of over $1.6 to $1.34. ADA follows suit with a 9% decline that has taken it to under $1.

Some losses are evident from the ever-volatile meme coin sector, with BRETT down by 10%, followed by BONK (-9%), FLOKI (-8%), and WIF (-7.5%).

Dogecoin is also in the red, dropping from nearly $0.5 on Saturday morning to $0.41 now.

This substantial volatility has harmed over-levaraged traders, with nearly 200,000 such market participants wrecked in the past 24 hours. The total value of liquidated positions is up to almost $500 million. Naturally, the lion’s share belong to longs, with $383 million.

The largest single one took place on Binance and was worth over $13 million.