Thursday’s selloff was one of the sharpest and most devastating in crypto market history: More than $2.6 billion was liquidated as bitcoin BTC$68,811.85 tumbled to $60,000 to mark its lowest point since October 2024.
The drawdown led to bitcoin being the third most “oversold” in its history, according to the relative strength index (RSI), a momentum oscillator that tracks market conditions. Oversold conditions of this magnitude historically precede a major bounce.
The situation grew a bit brighter as Asia woke up, with bitcoin bouncing from $60,000 to above $65,000 while ether ETH$2,048.66 came off a low of $1,750 to trade back at $1,920.
Even so, the broader crypto market remains in a bear market. Privacy coin zcash ZEC$232.32 has lost 34% of its value over the past week, while optimism OP$0.1919, solana SOL$86.27 and ether are all dealing with losses of around 30%.
Traditional markets have also struggled in recent days. The Nasdaq 100 index dropped 6% since Jan. 28, and precious metals gold and silver are down by 12% and 38%, respectively, over the same period.
Derivatives positioning
The crypto futures market is worth less than $100 billion for the first time since March 2025, as traders continue to reduce risk as prices slide and liquidations cause wealth destruction.
Over $2.6 billion in leveraged futures bets have been liquidated, or forced closed, by exchanges due to margin shortage in 24 hours. Out of that, over $2.10 billion were long bets. This shows the degree of bullish leverage that was deployed around the pivotal $70,000 support, which was breached Thursday.
Open interest (OI) has declined in futures tied to all major tokens, including recent outperformer HYPE.
Annualized perpetual funding rates for major tokens such as BTC, SOL, XRP and DOGE have flipped negative as price crashes triggered demand for bearish bets. The negative rates could see arbitrageurs resort to reverse cash and carry bets.
Bitcoin’s annualized 30-day implied volatility surged to nearly 100% late Thursday as traders scrambled to buy puts, with some snapping up these bearish bets at strike prices as low as $20,000. Since then, volatility has pulled back to under 70%. A similar pattern is seen in ether’s implied volatility.
Still, bitcoin and ether short-term put options continue to trade at a volatility premium of 20 or more points to calls, a sign of lingering downside worries. Puts remain pricier at the long end as well.
Options tied to BlackRock’s IBIT ETF saw record activity Thursday, with traders rushing to buy puts. The one-year skew rose to over 25 points, reflecting a massive premium for put options, indicating peak fear.
Token talk
The altcoin sector presented a couple of unlikely winners despite the broader market decline on Thursday. Privacy-focused decred DCR$23.63 rose by 31% in 24 hours, seemingly unperturbed by the carnage as it added to a rally that has lifted it from $17.4 to $24.2.
HyperLiquid’s HYPE token continues to perform well, relatively speaking, as it remains up 11% this week despite falling 4% in the past 24 hours.
XRP was one of the most volatile altcoins, plunging by more than 30% before bouncing by 21%. Trading volume topped $14 billion, a 143% rise over 24 hours.
The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) and CoinDesk 80 (CD80) both fell by around 6% in the past 24 hours, but the concerning corner of the market was DeFi, with the DeFi Select Index (DFX) underperforming the wider market with a decline of more than 10%.
CoinMarketCap’s “altcoin season” indicator is now at 24/100, down from Wednesday’s high of 32/100, suggesting investors are seeking safer, less volatile assets like bitcoin or stablecoins.
An ether ETH$2,048.66 bull was caught leaning hard into the upside this week as the cryptocurrency tanked, turning the whale bet into a multi-million dollar horror story.
That bull is Trend Research, a trading firm headed by Liquid Capital founder Jack Yi. The firm spent recent months building a bullish (long) bet worth $2 billion on ether by borrowing stablecoins from DeFi giant Aave, which were reportedly collateralized by ether.
The position blew up this week, leaving the firm with a $686 million loss, according to Arkham.
The blow up underscores the crypto market’s unchanged reality: Volatility can still make or break traders in a single week. It also shows how traders keep chasing risky leveraged loop plays – borrowing stablecoins against ETH collateral – despite these bets exploding spectacularly every downtrend.
Trend Research’s multi-million dollar loss. (Arkham)
How it went down
The team was convinced of ether’s long-term potential and expected a quick rebound from its October drop below $4,000.
But that never materialized – ether kept sliding, endangering their “looped ether” long position. As prices fell, the stablecoin collateral backing the leveraged bet shrank, while the fixed debt loomed large in classic leveraged fashion.
The final blow came this month as ether started falling rapidly with bitcoin BTC$68,811.85 and on Feb. 4 prices tanked to $1,750, the weakest level since April 2025. Trend Research responded by liquidating over 300,000 ether, according to data source Bubble Maps.
“Trend Research started sending large amounts of ETH to Binance to repay debt on AAVE In total, this cluster moved 332k ETH worth $700M to Binance over 5 days,” Bubble Maps said on X. The firm now holds just 1.463 ETH.
Jack Yi described these sales as a risk-control measure.
“As multi-heads in this round, we remain optimistic about the performance of the new bull market: ETH reaching over $10,000, BTC exceeding $200,000 USD. We’re just making some adjustments to control risk, with no change in our expectations for the future mega bull market,” Yi said in a post on X.
He added that now is the best time to buy tokens, calling volatility as the biggest feature of the crypto circle. “Historically, countless bulls have been shaken off by this volatility, but often what follows is a doubled rebound,” he noted.
WHY THIS MATTERS: Public equity markets are increasingly being questioned for their reliance on legacy infrastructure that prioritises intermediaries over efficiency. Batch settlement, restricted trading hours and complex custody chains add cost and friction that feel increasingly out of step with a digital-first investment world. Blockchain-native equity issuance represents a structural rethink—one that treats equities as programmable, continuously settling assets rather than static securities. By bridging regulated broker access with self-custody wallets, this model challenges the assumption that investors must choose between compliance and control. As capital markets explore faster settlement cycles and broader access, the convergence of traditional brokerage, on-chain registries and DeFi marks a significant step toward modernising how public equities are issued, traded and financed globally.
Figure is expanding investor access to the On-Chain Public Equity Network (OPEN) through new integrations with moomoo and Keplr, extending the distribution of blockchain-native public equities across both regulated brokerage platforms and self-custody wallets. OPEN allows companies to issue their equity native on blockchain and enables investors worldwide to invest in U.S. public equities while accessing decentralized finance (DeFi) for borrowing against and lending out stock.
Moomoo is the first retail brokerage to integrate with OPEN, enabling investors to trade equities registered on OPEN through a regulated trading platform. Additionally, as equities join OPEN Keplr will enable direct, self-custodied ownership of OPEN-issued equities, making it the first third-party self-custodied wallet to integrate with OPEN.
“We are thrilled to bring the blockchain revolution to moomoo customers and broaden access to more diversified investment strategies,” said Neil McDonald, CEO of moomoo. “This is a natural evolution of our tech-first strategy and we are excited to offer our customers access to Figure’s Democratized Prime for stock borrow and lend, delivering greater flexibility to participate in institutional-grade opportunities.”
Together with the Figure Markets app, these integrations demonstrate how public equities can trade and settle natively on blockchain while remaining accessible through both brokerage and self-custody models. Figure plans on offering its own stock – the first on OPEN – in the coming weeks.
Modernizing public equity market infrastructure
Traditional public equity markets rely on centralized clearing, custodial intermediation, and batch settlement cycles that introduce cost, delay, and operational complexity. OPEN replaces this structure with a blockchain-native registry and real-time settlement framework, enabling T+0 settlement, 24-hour trading and access to DeFi.
By supporting self-settlement on a regulated Alternative Trading System (ATS), OPEN streamlines post-trade processes while remaining aligned with existing securities regulations. This architecture also allows equities issued on OPEN to be accessed across multiple platforms while maintaining a single source of truth for ownership and settlement.
“Replacing broker-gated market access with self-custody wallets is a huge step for the blockchain ecosystem,” said Josh Lee, of Keplr. “We are excited to be spearheading this innovation.”
With over $22 billion in loans originated on public blockchain, Figure has established a track record of modernizing traditional financial markets by using blockchain infrastructure. OPEN extends this approach to public equities.
Expanding access while preserving market integrity
As additional platforms integrate with OPEN, public equities move closer to operating as continuously settling, digitally native instruments rather than assets constrained by legacy infrastructure.
“We are thrilled at how both moomoo and Keplr are democratizing access to the public equity market,” said Mike Cagney, Figure’s co-founder and Chairman. “We see this as the beginning of an entirely new public equity capital market.”
WHY THIS MATTERS: Public equity markets are increasingly being questioned for their reliance on legacy infrastructure that prioritises intermediaries over efficiency. Batch settlement, restricted trading hours and complex custody chains add cost and friction that feel increasingly out of step with a digital-first investment world. Blockchain-native equity issuance represents a structural rethink—one that treats equities as programmable, continuously settling assets rather than static securities. By bridging regulated broker access with self-custody wallets, this model challenges the assumption that investors must choose between compliance and control. As capital markets explore faster settlement cycles and broader access, the convergence of traditional brokerage, on-chain registries and DeFi marks a significant step toward modernising how public equities are issued, traded and financed globally.
Google search volume for the term “Bitcoin” surged over the past week as the asset’s price briefly fell to the $60,000 level for the first time since October 2024.
Google Trends provisional data shows worldwide searches for “Bitcoin” reached a score of 100 for the week starting Feb. 1, the highest level in the past 12 months.
The previous peak was a score of 95 in the week of Nov. 16–23, when Bitcoin (BTC) slipped below the psychological $100,000 level for the first time in nearly six months.
Google search interest for the term “Bitcoin” surged since Feb. 1. Source: Google Trends
Google search interest is one of several commonly used indicators among crypto analysts to gauge retail interest in Bitcoin and the broader crypto market, which typically spikes during significant price moves, particularly major rallies to new all-time highs or sudden sell-offs.
The increase comes as Bitcoin dropped from about $81,500 on Feb. 1 to roughly $60,000 within five days, before rebounding to $70,740 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.
Bitcoin is down 15.51% over the past seven days. Source: CoinMarketCap
Some market observers suggest the current price range may be drawing renewed attention from a broader retail audience. Bitwise head of Europe, André Dragosch, said in an X post on Saturday, “Retail is coming back.”
Meanwhile, CryptoQuant’s head of research, Julio Moreno, said in an X post on Saturday that US investors are buying Bitcoin after it reached $60,000. “The Coinbase premium is now positive for the first time since mid-January,” Moreno said.
Other indicators suggest that investors are still cautious about the crypto market. The Alternative.me Crypto Fear & Greed Index fell further down once again on Saturday to an “Extreme Fear” score of 6, nearing levels that haven’t been seen since June 2022.
Related: Crypto’s stress test hits balance sheets as Bitcoin, Ether collapse
The sentiment indicator’s decline to such low levels has led some market participants to suggest it could signal a buying opportunity.
Crypto analyst Ran Neuner said in an X post on Friday that, “every single metric is telling you that Bitcoin has never been more undervalued on a relative basis.”
Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation: Santiment founder
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XRP momentum is accelerating as Bitrue deepens integration, rolls out new RLUSD trading pairs, and doubles down on positioning traders for a potential market recovery, reinforcing XRP’s role as a core growth asset in crypto markets. Bitrue Expands XRP and RLUSD Strategy as Adoption Optimism Builds Growing optimism around XRP adoption gained momentum as crypto […]
OneDome, the UK-based housing and fintech platform, has raised $25 million in a Pre-Series C funding round, taking total funding raised to date to $40 million.
The round was funded largely by existing investors alongside Channel 4 Ventures, whose investment was announced in late 2025.
The funding will be used to support the next phase of growth, including continued investment in technology, product development, and expansion of OneDome’s integrated housing and financial services platform.
The raise follows a period of strong momentum for the company. OneDome was ranked the 4th fastest-growing fintech and 17th fastest-growing technology business in the UK by the Deloitte Fast 50 2025, based on 1,700% revenue growth between 2021 and 2024. In 2026, the company was also named the 6th fastest-growing technology business by the Sunday Times Tech 100, having grown revenues by 4,066% between 2022 and 2025.
The platform currently arranges approximately $1.4 billion of mortgage lending per month and works with a network of over 500 mortgage brokers, making it one of the largest mortgage and property platforms in the UK.
Babek Ismayil, Founder and CEO of OneDome, said: “Buying a home is still one of the most stressful and disjointed financial transactions people go through. We started OneDome to fix that by bringing everything under one roof and turning homebuying into a simple, transparent retail experience. This funding allows us to scale what is already a profitable and fast-growing platform, while continuing to challenge how homes are bought and financed in the UK.”
Political action committees (PACs) representing the interests of the crypto industry have already secured millions of dollars in funding as the US heads toward its midterm elections.
Super PACs are the uber-rich, no-limits, non-disclosure counterparts to crypto PACs. Last year, the industry spent at least $245 million in campaign contributions alone.
The main super PAC funded by the cryptocurrency industry, Fairshake, raised some $133 million in 2025, bringing its total cash on hand up to over $190 million. Venture capital firm a16z contributed an initial $24 million, while Coinbase and Ripple each donated $25 million.
This influx of cash has alarmed activist and election reform groups. Saurav Ghosh, director of the Campaign Legal Center — a legal center concentrated on voting rights, fair districting and campaign finance reform — told Cointelegraph:
“This kind of influence buying ultimately undermines the democratic process by marginalizing everyday Americans, ensuring that their voices and interests take a backseat to the crypto industry’s deregulatory desires.”
Bipartisan support ensures crypto lobby’s success
The US crypto industry’s main goal is to pass a large framework law, the CLARITY Act, which passed in the House of Representatives this summer and moved on to the Senate. The bill still hasn’t managed to satisfy the crypto industry, particularly Coinbase, nor the ethics and oversight concerns of Senate Democrats.
Now, the CLARITY Act is in limbo, and Congress is shifting its attention to the 2026 midterm elections. For nearly 80 years, the president’s party has almost always lost the midterms, the federal elections in the off-year between presidential elections. This is particularly important for the crypto industry, which enjoys more full-throated support among the Republican Party. Take, for example, the roll call for the Senate’s vote on the GENIUS Act: Nearly twice as many Democrats voted against the motion compared to those in support of it.
Some in the crypto space have taken this to mean they need to take a partisan stance. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of the crypto exchange Gemini, have poured millions into the conservative PAC Digital Freedom Fund, which aims to boost pro-crypto and pro-Trump candidates.
Others have stressed the need for bipartisan support, warning that backing one party is bound to backfire once the other eventually takes power.
Representative Sam Liccardo, a crypto-friendly Democrat, told Politico in October 2025, “I don’t think anybody in this town would recommend that an industry put their eggs in one party’s basket.”
One major lobby, Fairshake, has shown it’s more than willing to support Democrats, so long as they are sufficiently pro-crypto. The Super PAC actually spent more money in support of Democrats than it did Republicans from 2023 to 2024, according to Open Secrets.
Whether it be among Republicans or Democrats, the crypto industry’s political strategy has changed significantly both in how much and where it spends its dollars.
How did we get here?
Crypto made headlines in 2024 for donating nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to different political campaigns and super PACs — the largest contribution of any single industry.
But this wasn’t crypto’s first step in the political arena. During the crypto bull run of 2020-2021, crypto companies made massive ad buys. Celebrities like Matt Damon were advertising crypto investment platforms. Now-convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried slapped the name of his now-defunct crypto exchange, FTX, onto the home of the Miami Heat basketball team.
At the same time, crypto increased its lobbying efforts in Washington. Major platforms like Coinbase and fintech developers like Ripple padded their budgets as the industry gained visibility.
Coinbase raised spending from $1.5 million in 2020 to $3.9 million in 2021. Ripple more than tripled the amount it spent on lobbying over the same period, spending $330,000 in 2020 and more than $1.1 million in 2021.
One major donor from the crypto space was Bankman-Fried. He made more than $100 million in political campaign contributions in the 2022 midterms. “He leveraged this influence, in turn, to lobby Congress and regulatory agencies to support legislation and regulation he believed would make it easier for FTX to continue to accept customer deposits and grow,” federal prosecutors said in a later indictment.
By Bankman-Fried’s own admission, he supported campaigns on both sides of the aisle, though he found Republicans “far more reasonable” on crypto.
The crypto market crashed soon after. FTX went bust, the Terra stablecoin system collapsed, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US’ main finance regulator under then-Chair Gary Gensler, opened enforcement actions against many crypto companies operating in the US.
American Airlines Arena was renamed FTX Arena in 2021 and has since been changed to Kaseya Center. Source: RoofLogos
Related: SBF always played both sides of the aisle despite new Republican plea
In 2023, the presidential election cycle began. Trump ran against ex-Vice President Kamala Harris. Crypto, for the first time, was on the presidential platform. Trump visited a Bitcoin (BTC) conference and made promises of ending “regulation by enforcement.
Crypto poured money into the race through PACs and super PACs. For the 2024 selections, these were namely:
Fairshake raised a whopping $260 million from 2023 to 2024, at least $92 million of which came from Coinbase. It made $126 million in independent expenditures and transfers to affiliated committees.
Independent expenditures are expenditures “for a communication that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate and which is not made in coordination with any candidate or their campaign or political party,” per the FEC.
According to Follow the Crypto, the two other single-issue crypto PACs are affiliated with Fairshake, despite one being liberal and the other conservative. Defend American Jobs made $57 million in independent expenditures, and Protect Progress made $34.5 million over the same 2023-2024 period.
This vast amount of money entering PACs reflects a broader shift in how companies seek political influence.
“Super PACs are increasingly becoming in vogue for special interests who want to make their presence known in Washington,” Michael Beckel, research director of Issue One — a bipartisan political reform organization watching big money in politics — told Cointelegraph.
“Industry-aligned super PACs with huge bank accounts have made a huge splash and helped thwart new regulations on their business interests.”
Just a few years ago, “corporate influence operations focused more on lobbying and direct campaign contributions,” Beckel explained. “Now we’re seeing sector-specific super PACs with massive bank accounts.”
And it’s changing how laws are made in Washington.
Crypto lobby affects policy as Trump seeks to “nationalize” elections
Blockchain bigwigs now regularly visit Washington to meet with lawmakers and advise policymakers on how to regulate the industry.
Issue One vice president of advocacy Alix Fraser said, “The Trump administration is packed with tech industry insiders who have acted in the interest of their own companies — not the American people — to rig policy for their own profit.”
The degree to which the crypto industry is involved in the legislative process is no more apparent than with the market structure bill making its way through the Senate. Work on the bill stalled in mid-January after Coinbase withdrew its support.
The exchange’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, wrote on X:
Source: Brian Armstrong
The main point of contention is a provision that would outlaw one of Coinbase’s products: stablecoin yields for consumers. Banks are pushing to outlaw the practice, saying a flight of deposits from insured lenders could threaten financial stability. The crypto industry and Coinbase argue that the ban stifles innovation and is anti-competitive.
Earlier this week, the White House scheduled a closed-door summit for leaders from the crypto and banking industries to hash out their differences, but according to Reuters, no deal was made.
According to reporter Eleanor Terrett, Senate Democrats said that the talks were “constructive” and were optimistic about the chances of passing a bill. Reporter Sander Lutz said that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is “desperate” to get the bill finished, as Fairshake alone now has $193 million in its coffers.
“These payments help explain the crypto industry’s success in curtailing efforts to meaningfully regulate their business model, which is consistent with a well-established practice of wealthy corporate special interests using lobbying and political contributions to influence policy decisions,” Ghosh told Cointelegraph.
“This kind of influence buying ultimately undermines the democratic process by marginalizing everyday Americans, ensuring that their voices and interests take a backseat to the crypto industry’s deregulatory desires.”
Rick Claypool, research director at consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen, told Cointelegraph that big money from lobbies like crypto pushes out the priorities of most voters from the agenda.
“This feeds cynicism — the sense that our elected officials prioritize the interests of wealthy donors over all other constituents — and erodes faith in our democratic institutions.”
Related: US crypto market structure bill in limbo as industry pulls support
The increased influence of monied interests in Washington comes at a time when election integrity itself is under threat. Trump has recently said Republicans should “nationalize” the midterm elections.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places … the Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,’” he said.
He added that he will only accept the results if they are “honest,” while claiming that there was widespread voter fraud in many American cities. Election experts have refuted the claims. House Speaker Mike Johnson has admitted that he himself has no evidence of his own claims of voter fraud.
Marc Elias, a partner at Elias Law Group, said that Trump “is not interested in following the Constitution. As we have seen before, he prefers to act by force.”
Crypto is set to increase its influence in Washington as the very elections themselves are at risk of tampering and interference from the highest levels of government.
Magazine: 6 weirdest devices people have used to mine Bitcoin and crypto
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IREN’s (IREN) latest earnings offered a snapshot of a company mid-transition, with shares currently paying the price for that transition. The firm reported weaker-than-expected revenue and earnings as bitcoin BTC$65,998.81 mining took a back seat to its rapidly expanding AI cloud ambitions.
Crushed by record-low margins after the 2024 halving, bitcoin miners are recasting themselves as digital infrastructure players, converting power-hungry mining sites into AI-ready data centers in a bid for more stable, long-term revenue.
One of last year’s best-performing stocks, not just in crypto, but for the whole market, IREN has come back to earth a bit since hitting a record high near $77 in November. Down about 20% amid Thursday’s market crash, shares are flat on Friday at $39.77.
IREN has secured $3.6 billion in GPU financing tied to its Microsoft contract, alongside a $1.9 billion customer prepayment, funding that management says will cover roughly 95% of GPU-related capital expenditures as it scales its AI business, a development JPMorgan analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce described as encouraging.
IREN’s fiscal second-quarter revenue fell sequentially as lower average hashrate, fewer coins mined and a quarter-over-quarter drop in bitcoin prices weighed on results, according to the Wall Street bank.
The drag from mining was partly offset by rapid growth in cloud services, where revenue more than doubled from the prior quarter to $17 million. That figure came in above JPMorgan’s $14 million estimate but well short of the Street’s $28 million forecast. Management said all GPUs currently energized are fully contracted, a signal the bank described as encouraging as the company pivots toward AI infrastructure.
Cost controls also helped cushion the quarter. Cash SG&A dropped sharply to $43 million, while power costs declined on lower average hashrate. As a result, adjusted EBITDA reached $75 million, beating the bank’s estimate, driven by lower operating and energy expenses. The bank has an underweight rating on the stock.
Investment bank B. Riley raised its price target on IREN to $83 from $74 while reiterating its buy rating, arguing that the recent pullback has created an attractive entry point.
The upgrade comes despite a softer fiscal second quarter, during which adjusted EBITDA of $75.3 million missed expectations. B. Riley said the earnings miss is overshadowed by IREN’s progress on its AI pivot, including $3.6 billion in low-cost GPU financing tied to its Microsoft deal, a $1.9 billion prepayment that covers about 95% of GPU capex, and an expanded power portfolio now exceeding 4.5 gigawatts (GW).
Compass Point analyst Michael Donovan reiterated a buy rating and a $105 price target on IREN, saying the latest earnings show a company better positioned for growth, even though recent results were weaker. He said IREN now has more secure power and a clearer plan to fund its expansion, which matters more than one soft quarter.
Donovan described the fourth quarter as a period of change. Revenue fell to $184.7 million as the company mined less bitcoin while shifting its facilities from older bitcoin-focused machines to newer chips used for artificial intelligence. Even so, the mix of revenue improved as AI-related services began to make up a larger share of the business.
He pointed to the $3.6 billion financing package linked to IREN’s Microsoft project as an important milestone. The funding is larger than originally planned and is structured so that money is drawn as construction moves forward and revenue contracts kick in.
Donovan expects IREN to begin recognizing revenue from Microsoft toward the end of the second quarter of 2026, with revenue increasing in stages after that. By the end of 2026, he sees a path for the business to generate about $3.4 billion in annualized revenue.
TrumpRx.gov aggregates steep cash-pay discounts on more than 40 branded drugs, routing users to manufacturers or pharmacies without insurance or accounts.
GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound anchor the launch, with prices cut by as much as 85–93% from U.S. list prices under a most-favored-nation framework.
Supporters hail the platform as a breakthrough on affordability, while critics argue it benefits a narrow slice of patients and sidesteps deeper reforms to insurance and drug pricing.
TrumpRx.gov, a government-backed platform aimed at slashing U.S. prescription drug prices by tying them to the lowest rates paid in other developed countries, launched late Thursday.
The site, branded as a “most-favored-nation” pricing tool, is positioned as a clearinghouse to help users find the best pricing for prescription drugs. Users can search for medications, see sharply discounted cash prices, generate printable or digital coupons, and are then routed to participating manufacturers or pharmacies to complete purchases. No insurance is required, and no account is needed.
The White House has billed TrumpRx as a transparency play designed to bypass middlemen—pharmacy benefit managers, insurers, and opaque rebate structures that have long distorted U.S. drug pricing. At launch, the platform lists more than 40 branded drugs from major pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca, with additional medications promised in the coming months.
The rollout focused heavily on GLP-1 agonists, the blockbuster drugs used to treat diabetes and obesity that have become a flashpoint in the broader healthcare affordability debate. Monthly list prices for these drugs often exceed $1,000 in the U.S., far higher than prices in Europe or Asia.
Via the TrumpRx portal, those numbers drop sharply for cash-paying users, based on coupons offered by pharma companies:
Ozempic (semaglutide for diabetes) is listed as low as $199 per month, down from roughly $1,028.
Wegovy (semaglutide for obesity) starts at $199 per month for injectable pens, down from $1,349, while the newly approved pill version is listed starting at $149 per month.
Zepbound (tirzepatide) from Eli Lilly appears at $299–$346 per month, compared with list prices exceeding $1,000.
Trump called the cuts—up to 85-93% on certain doses—historic, framing them as the product of direct negotiations with drugmakers and proof that aggressive federal leverage can break what he described as entrenched price-gouging by pharmaceutical giants.
“It’s the biggest thing to happen in health care, I think, in many, many decades,” he said at the White House announcement Thursday. At the event, the administration highlighted other steep discounts, including asthma inhalers from AstraZeneca dropping from $458 to $51. A military spouse spoke about how lower drug prices could reshape family planning and long-term health decisions.
Supporters quickly seized on the announcement as a political and cultural win. Conservative media and pro-Trump accounts on social media circulated screenshots of TrumpRx price listings and launch videos, framing the platform as a rare, tangible intervention in an area where Americans routinely feel powerless. The emphasis on GLP-1 drugs—now entangled with conversations about obesity, productivity, and healthcare access—gave the rollout broader resonance beyond traditional partisan lines.
But critics were equally quick to puncture the narrative.
So there it is: they killed the ACA because this loon wanted to launch a scam with HIS name: trump Rx.
Millions of Americans losing their Healthcare because of his greed and his ego. pic.twitter.com/l8NBa8ALTJ
Health policy experts and Democratic lawmakers have argued that TrumpRx targets a relatively narrow slice of the market: uninsured patients or those paying cash. Most Americans, they noted, rely on insurance plans where copays and negotiated rates may already undercut—or complicate—the TrumpRx pricing.
Others pointed out that similar self-pay discounts for some GLP-1 drugs already exist through private platforms like GoodRx, raising questions about how much of the “savings” represent genuinely new price reductions versus repackaged existing deals with “Trump” branding.
Skeptics also challenged the headline percentage cuts, noting that list prices themselves are inflated artifacts of the U.S. rebate system. In that context, a dramatic discount can still leave patients paying more than international peers—and can obscure who ultimately absorbs the cost difference. On social media and in policy circles, detractors labeled TrumpRx a “gimmick” or a politically timed workaround that avoids deeper reforms to patent law, pharmacy benefit manager incentives, and insurance design.
There are also unanswered questions about sustainability. TrumpRx relies on voluntary manufacturer participation and negotiated pricing, rather than statutory caps. Whether drugmakers continue offering steep discounts once the political spotlight fades—or expand them beyond a curated list of high-profile drugs—remains unclear.
Still, the platform represents a notable escalation in the federal government’s willingness to directly intervene in drug pricing optics, if not yet the underlying system. For millions of Americans managing chronic conditions without insurance—or priced out of coverage—TrumpRx could provide real, immediate relief.
For everyone else, it reopens a familiar question in U.S. healthcare: When prices finally fall, who is actually paying the difference—and who decides how long the discounts last?
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