The crypto markets keep roaring. The total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies notched a new all-time high of almost $4.15 trillion early Monday morning, according to data from CoinGecko. That beats the last record set in late July. The total value of the crypto market has since dipped but is still up almost 0.6% over the past 24 hours.
Among the top tokens, Ethereum is the biggest gainer. The world’s second largest cryptocurrency crossed the threshold of $4,000 over the weekend for the first time since December. The token is up over 2% in the past 24 hours and now trades at around $4,300, according to data from Binance.
Ethereum’s surge outpaces Bitcoin’s, but the world’s largest cryptocurrency is still up 1.4% over the past day to cross the $120,000 mark, per Binance. The stock markets are essentially flat, with the S&P 500 slightly up since Monday morning.
The surge in the digital assets market comes amid two crypto-friendly executive orders from President Donald Trump.
On Thursday, the 47th president instructed federal regulators to reevaluate their guidance on the allowance of alternative assets like crypto or private equity into employer-sponsored retirement plans.
The measure essentially reinstated a similar order Trump had issued in 2020 during his first term that Preisdent Joe Biden rolled back when he assumed office.
Still, crypto industry analysts hailed last week’s executive order as a potential windfall for the industry. Assets in 401(k)s totaled $8.7 trillion in the first quarter of 2025, according to the Investment Company Institute.
On the same day that Trump potentially opened up 401(k)s to crypto, he also tackled one more pet issue for the digital assets industry. In an executive order, he instructed financial institutions to stop the practice of “debanking” of customers based on their politics, religious beliefs, or business activities.
The crypto industry has long decried banks’ shuttering of their accounts, and some have alleged that there was a centralized conspiracy, known as Operation Chokepoint 2.0, to deny crypto businesses access to traditional financial institutions. Still, there hasn’t been a smoking gun, or discrete guidance from regulators that instructed banks to stop working with crypto firms.
Regardless, industry advocates cheered on the president’s order on debanking.
“Operation Chokepoint 2.0 was real,” Paul Grewal, the chief legal officer at the crypto exchange Coinbase, posted Thursday on X. “And now we see real action taken to fix it.”
-1024x768.jpg "Red Snapper Used as Cudgel by Fed Judge")
