Nick was enjoying his Saturday off work in Pennsylvania when he received an unexpected and alarming message: cryptocurrencies, buoyed since Donald Trump鈥檚 November 5 election win, were in freefall.
The crash immediately wiped out tens of thousands of dollars from his savings.
鈥業 clicked on it and watched it for like a minute just drop straight down,鈥� the 28-year-old American construction worker, who asked for anonymity because of sensitivities around investing in crypto assets, told AFP.
鈥業 was like, 鈥榃ell, I guess I should stop looking at it now鈥�,鈥� he added with a laugh.
Crypto investors like Nick are being buffeted by Trump鈥檚 vow to make the United States the 鈥榗rypto capital of the planet鈥� while at the same time upending trade and other policy areas with a raft of executive orders and announcements. Digital currencies are now seeing sudden fluctuations that are impacting legions of both small and large investors.
Last weekend, cryptos suffered a meltdown after Trump announced impending trade tariffs on US imports from Canada, China and Mexico, prompting investors to turn to safer assets.
The value of Bitcoin, by far the most important crypto which has broken record after record and gained around 50 per cent since Trump鈥檚 election, dropped six per cent at the height of the crash.
Ether, another blockchain currency considered credible, fell around a quarter. The falls have been more dramatic for so-called 鈥榤eme coins鈥� 鈥� cheap and highly volatile cryptos with little or no economic use, themed around a celebrity or viral internet phenomenon.
