The cryptocurrency market took a sharp hit in the first quarter of 2025, with total market capitalization dropping by 18.6%. After peaking at $3.8 trillion in mid-January — just before Donald Trump’s inauguration — the market cooled off, closing the quarter at $2.8 trillion. Along with this, average daily trading volumes also saw a major dip, falling 27.3% to $146 billion.

While the market pulled back, Bitcoin strengthened its relative position, increasing dominance to 59.1%. This occurred even as BTC’s price fell 11.8% for the quarter, from its January ATH near $106k to close March around $82.5k, suggesting altcoins bore the brunt.

One of the biggest stories during this period was the surge and crash in the meme coin market. The launch of Donald Trump’s official meme coin and Melania’s shortly after set off a meme coin craze, with thousands of tokens being created daily on the pump.fun platform. 

The platform hit a record of 72,000 new token deployments in a single day at the height of this trend.

Related: Japan Urged to Adopt National Bitcoin Strategy to Stay Ahead in Global Finance

How Did the LIBRA Crash Impact Meme Sentiment & Pump.fun?

The excitement around political-themed meme coins faded quickly after Argentinian President Javier Milei promoted a token called LIBRA. The coin’s price crashed soon after his tweet, with its market cap plunging from $4.6 billion to just $221 million in a few hours following a developer rug pull. This incident shook investor confidence in new meme tokens.

Though some thought Milei’s account was hacked, he confirmed the post was real. Later, he deleted it and claimed he didn’t know the details of the project. Investigations have now been launched—both by the government and by the courts. Some are accusing Milei of breaking ethics laws, though there’s no evidence he made money from the project.

Related: Trump to Dine With TRUMP Token Whales—Is This Web3 or Just Old-School Politics?

Since then, activity on pump.fun has dropped drastically. The number of new tokens deployed on the platform fell by 56.3% from its January peak, with only 31,000 being created daily by the end of March. Even the percentage of tokens that successfully moved out of the platform’s early stage, known as ‘graduated’ tokens, dropped from 1.4% in January to just 0.7%.