Trump Tariffs Are Coming!

Of all the many things the incoming president of the United States loves, tariffs seem to be near the top of the list. Donald Trump is very, very fond of tariffs; the rest of the world… not so much. Which probably makes him love them even more.

It looks like a nailed-on certainty that tariffs (that is, taxes) on imports of foreign goods into the USA are going to be a feature of the next four years. They’re a key component of Trump’s plan to make America great once again and they will have a profound effect on the global economy.

But what exactly are tariffs? How do they work? Do they work? Are they a new idea, or something that’s been tried before? Given how we’re all likely to feel their effects in some way or another, we thought we should go in search of the answers to these questions and more besides.

In today’s video, we take a deep dive into Trump’s tariff fixation and examine what it could mean for all of us. We also explore the US’s surprisingly long history with them and what other countries may do in response.

You can watch that video here.

📈 Crypto Market Forecast 📈

After a blazing week for BTC, it’s time for altcoins to have some fun. Although there aren’t any concrete catalysts that could take altcoins higher this week per se, the foundations are starting to form. Starting with Ethereum, asset manager Bitwise recently acquired an ETH staking service. This foreshadows filings for staked spot Ethereum ETFs in the near future.

Linea also announced plans to launch a token for its layer 2 in early 2025. For those unfamiliar, Linea was created by Consensys, arguably the most important company in Ethereum’s ecosystem. Besides being founded by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, Consensys is also the creator of the Metamask wallet and Infura, a critical part of Ethereum’s architecture.

Next up by market cap is Tether’s USDT, which has some bullish foreshadowing of its own. In case you missed the news, USDT was recently used to settle a $45 million oil trade in the Middle East. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said this “marks the beginning” for similar transactions. This foreshadows stablecoins being used more for international trade, which is bullish indeed.

This begs the question of which cryptos could benefit. The answer is all the smart contract cryptos that support stablecoins, particularly Solana. FYI, Solana has been positioning itself for stablecoin payments, with PayPal’s PYUSD as the focus. As you might have heard, PayPal integrated with LayerZero to make it easy to migrate PYUSD from Ethereum to Solana.

This ties into another bullish catalyst for Solana, and that’s the recent launch of Coinbase’s cbBTC on its blockchain. Newsflash, but BTC is arguably the best collateral to use in DeFi, mainly because it’s the most liquid crypto there is and is also supported by additional inflows from ETFs and the like. cbBTC on Solana could therefore supercharge its DeFi ecosystem.

This relates to another large cap crypto to watch in the coming weeks, and that’s BNB. Binance’s de facto exchange token has been making some interesting moves, like integrating its top dApps with Telegram. This is something we noted in our recent update on the project. BNB has been painting a massive cup and handle pattern that foreshadows a huge breakout.

On that note, Dogecoin has undoubtedly been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the recent US election. Of course, this is because of the so-called Department Of Government Efficiency or DOGE, which will be co-headed by the one and only Elon Musk. While it’s unclear whether the department will actually be established, it nonetheless makes for an amazing meme.

Speaking of which, it’s possible that the creation of the DOGE could be the catalyst that marks the cycle top for not just Dogecoin, but the top memecoins more broadly. It’s easy to forget that there’s a difference between memecoins and narratives. It’s also easy to forget that the memecoin mania we’ve seen is a consequence of the current players in the crypto market.

Right now, it’s mostly experienced crypto retail investors and crypto whales playing around in the crypto market. As positive crypto regulations in the US are waved through Congress next year, a new wave of retail investors will arrive, and institutional investors will start getting exposure to altcoins in size for the first time. They likely won’t be aping into DOGE.

Instead, retail investors and institutional investors will ape into cryptos with strong narratives, specifically cryptos with narratives that are recognizable and easy to understand. This is mainly going to be decentralised alternatives to existing products and services, like decentralised Spotify. Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but they won’t be buying liquid restaking cryptos.

Now consider that quality altcoins with strong narratives have been flying under the radar due to the tunnel vision around memecoins. Some would say this creates an amazing opportunity.

But, for now memecions will rally, speaking of which…

🐸 Meme Recap 🐸

It’s been a wild couple of weeks for the crypto market.

BTC broke new all-time highs following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election. The Republican party’s majorities in the Senate and House have bolstered this bullishness. Crypto investors appear to be pricing in a future that offers innovation-friendly regulation for digital assets in the US.

That said, the week's top performers in both the top 100 and top 500 assets by market capitalisation (mcap) aren't tech-focused altcoins. Instead, the main characters following BTC’s lead are memecoins.

Among the top 100 assets, we have PNUT (+1572%), DOGE (+83%), and PEPE (+76%) bagging the top three spots. Among the top 500 assets, the leaders seem to be ACT (+2526%), SHOGGOTH (+776%), and LUCE (+235%). Note that these percentages cited are as displayed at the time of writing.

Fun fact: four of those six memecoins didn’t exist 30 days ago. All four also happen to be memecoins on Solana created using the pump.fun launchpad. So, unless you’ve been deep in the Solana memecoin trenches, chances are that you didn’t hear about them until it was too late.

That’s why this segment of today’s newsletter will focus on getting you up to speed on the origin/lore of the main memecoins that led the rally. If you decide to dive deep into the murky depths of memes, then we suggest you stick around until the end of the newsletter - we’ve got some tips on how to protect yourself while toiling to find those 100x gems.

Let’s begin, shall we?

First, there are quite a number of catalysts that have caused memecoins to perform better than other altcoin categories in this week’s broader rally. Chief among them appears to be Tesla founder Elon Musk’s involvement with Trump’s presidential campaign.

During the course of the campaign, Musk constantly hinted at potentially being a part of the Trump administration once the man himself had been elected. Specifically, Musk claimed he would create a government efficiency commission that would supposedly conduct “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” and make recommendations for drastic reforms.

True to his previous meme antics, Musk claimed this government efficiency commission would be called the “Department of Government Efficiency,” which when abbreviated reads DOGE - the ticker of Musk’s favourite memecoin.

Unsurprisingly, this caused the price of DOGE to gradually grind upward before breaking out into a god candle on November 12th when Trump confirmed the appointment of Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the new administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (aka DOGE).

That said, DOGE is not the only memecoin to pump off the back of Musk’s endorsement in recent days. That privilege is shared by PNUT - a memecoin that was created after the death of internet sensation Peanut the Squirrel ignited a social media uproar. You see, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) had forcefully taken Peanut and another pet, a raccoon named Fred, from their owner on October 30th. They were then euthanized by the authorities on public health grounds that very same day.

When this story went viral on social media, Musk waded in, making multiple posts about Peanut’s story. These posts often referred to the squirrel as PNUT, causing the memecoin with that ticker to go viral. At the time of writing, PNUT sits at a mcap of $1.75 billion and an all-time high mcap of roughly $2.4 billion.

A good portion of this price action also comes from crypto exchange Binance’s listing announcement for PNUT and ACT (another memecoin). This announcement caught many market participants by surprise while renewing optimism for a potential ‘memecoin supercycle.’  

The rally led by this announcement was mostly focused on Solana memecoins, given both PNUT and ACT were pump.fun tokens. ACT’s listing alongside PNUT also triggered a rally for AI Agent memecoins. If you didn’t know, ACT stands for ‘Act 1: The AI Prophecy’ – an AI-themed memecoin whose meme focuses on a world where humans collaborate with AI Agents. ACT’s rally even saw it briefly flip GOAT – the first memecoin to go viral after being shilled by an AI Agent. This resulted in traders speculating heavily on AI Agent beta plays, including SHOGGOTH (anti-AI meme) and FART (beta play to GOAT).

That said, Binance is not the only crypto exchange to pump the market this week with memecoin listing announcements. PEPE, the second-largest memecoin on Ethereum, saw a god candle after major US crypto exchanges Robinhood and Coinbase announced they were listing it. Similarly, South Korea’s largest crypto exchange Upbit announced that it would allow the trading of PEPE trading pairs on November. 16. This caused the price of the asset to break new all-time highs.

The interesting part is that PEPE’s low ticker price is being exploited by shillfluencers who make social media posts calling for a $1 price tag in the future. For context, PEPE’s price at the moment is $0.00002171 and it’s already a top 20 cryptocurrency by mcap. At $1, PEPE would be the largest asset by mcap in the world. This is called ‘unit bias’, folks. Stay clear of such ludicrous expectations.

Other memecoins that have seen notable price action this week include LUCE – a memecoin based on the official mascot of the Catholic Church's 2025 Jubilee, and FWOG – a frog-themed Solana memecoin that made headlines this week by recording an NFT sale worth 260 SOL ($57,000).

While memecoins have certainly been the biggest winners this week, diving into the trenches without any preparation is a surefire way to get rekt. Experienced traders often use bots to snipe token listings, generating fake volume and demand for an asset. If you insist on being involved anyway, make sure you learn the ins and outs of using tools like Dexscreener and Bubblemaps.

Dexscreener provides you with crucial information such as available liquidity in a trading pool and security checks alerting you of potential honeypots. Bubblemaps, on the other hand, provides a graphical breakdown of the potential concentration of tokens in the hands of one entity – alerting you of potential price manipulation. Once you get the safety measures in place, you can also use tools that help you execute trades as fast as possible from the comfort of your mobile device.

Until next time, stay safe anon.

🔥 Hot Deal Of The Week 🔥

Altcoins could be on the precipice of face melting gains! This prospect has an increasing number of traders dabbling in the altcoin space on exchanges like Bybit!

We’ve increasingly seen members of the Coin Bureau Team gravitate towards Bybit for their own personnel trading. Maybe that’s because we’ve secured up to $60k in rewards when signing up through Coin Bureau?

👉 Don’t miss out on altseason: Give Bybit a try!

🔮 Video Pipeline 🔮

* US Bitcoin Reserve: The potential impacts for the world!
* AI Crypto Research: How AI tools can be used to your advantage?
* Glassnode Q4 Report: Highlights the current stage of the cycle and more….
* Europe Economy: The EU’s economic struggles and how innovation is hindered?
* Trump Economy: His proposed economic policies and what they might mean?
 
🏆 What's New at CoinBureau.com This Week? 🏆

* EigenLayer Review 2025: Pioneering Restaking Protocol!
* The Top Crypto Credit Cards Compared In 2025
* The Best Beginner-Friendly Crypto Wallets You Should Try

📖 Quote of the Week 📖

Congratulations to all those who have been stacking sats over the past few months. That conviction is starting to pay off.

"You make most of your money in a bear market, you just don’t realize it at the time" - Shelby Cullom Davis

Team Coin Bureau

Disclosure: Authors may own cryptoassets named in this newsletter. These are unqualified opinions, and a Coin Bureau newsletter, is meant for informational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. Please consult with your investment, tax, or legal advisor.