Wednesday, 27 Aug, 2025

This week in crypto, Donald Trump Jr. became a member of prediction platform Polymarket’s board, blue-chip NFT collections experienced double-digit price appreciation, and Gemini surpassed Coinbase on the US Apple App Store charts hours after it rolled out an XRP Mastercard.

Trump Jr. becomes member of Polymarket board as prediction market targets US return

Prediction platform Polymarket has appointed Donald Trump Jr. to its advisory board following a strategic investment from 1789 Capital, which bills itself as a politically aligned fund supporting firms it believes are pushing “American exceptionalism.”

The firms did not disclose financial terms, but Axios put the investment at “double-digit millions of dollars.”

Trump Jr. joined the fund as a partner in 2024. On Tuesday, he stated that “Polymarket cuts through media spin and so-called ‘expert’ opinion by letting people bet on what they actually believe will happen in the world.”

The investment comes after Polymarket worked towards a regulated return to the US market, following being compelled to block users under a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) action.

The company was fined $1.4 million in 2022 for running an unregistered swaps platform and was directed to ban American users. To regain a legal presence, it bought CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange QCEX for $112 million in July 2025, around the time that CFTC and Department of Justice probes into the platform closed.

Blue chip NFTs plummet double digits as ETH moves away from all-time highs

Blue-chip non-fungible token (NFT) projects experienced sharp weekly drops as Ether retreated from record highs.

Stats from decentralized finance aggregator DefiLlama indicated that leading projects had their floor prices drop by double digits over the past week. Blue-chip NFT projects such as Pudgy Penguins, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Doodles were some of the worst affected.

Pudgy Penguins, the leading NFT collection in terms of 24-hour and 7-day volume, fell 17.3% to a floor price of 10.32 Ether (ETH). BAYC fell 14.7% to 9.59 ETH, and Doodles had one of the steepest corrections, falling 18.9% to 0.73 ETH. Other blue-chip collections such as Moonbirds and Lil Pudgys fell 10.5% and 14.6%, respectively. The NFT floor price decline followed a steep ETH retracement after reaching new all-time highs. On Monday, ETH hit an all-time high of $4,946 according to CoinGecko data. ETH fell 12% Tuesday to $4,342 before bouncing back slightly. The crypto asset was trading at $4,433 at the time of writing.

Gemini overtakes Coinbase on app store following XRP Mastercard launch

Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange created by the Winklevoss twins, beat Coinbase in the app store rankings after rolling out an XRP-rewards credit card with Ripple Labs and Mastercard.

“This limited edition metal card rewards up to 4% in XRP instantly. No delay, just stacking,” Gemini stated in a post on Monday.
Sensor Tower data indicates that Gemini surpassed Coinbase in US finance category rankings post-announcement, with Gemini ranking 16th at the time of writing, and Coinbase ranking 20th.

Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss commented, “The flippening is accelerating” in an X post on Monday.

The event may be seen as significant as Coinbase has over three times the daily trading volume of Gemini, recent data from Messari shows.