The past few months have been disastrous for cryptocurrencies. Even after bouncing back a bit on Friday, bitcoin is now down almost 50 percent from its all-time high in October, and other cryptocurrencies'including well-established ones such as ethereum and solana'have fallen far further. Crypto winters are nothing new: The biggest drop in bitcoin's history, in 2011, knocked 99 percent off its value. But this one feels especially painful, because it came at a moment when crypto enthusiasts thought they had finally made it. Donald Trump's election finally gave the industry a president who was avowedly crypto-friendly. Trump appointed regulators who, unlike those under Joe Biden, showed no interest in limiting crypto's spread or cracking down on crypto exchanges. In October, he pardoned the founder of the biggest crypto exchange, Binance, who had been convicted of violating U.S. law by failing to adequately prevent money laundering on the site. Trump even put out a crypto coin of his...
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