Here’s what happened in crypto today

Today in crypto, US President Donald Trump slammed the Federal Reserve chair for delaying rate cuts. CoinGecko says investor focus remains on memecoins and AI in early 2025. Meanwhile, Coinbase is distancing Base from a token it was criticized for promoting.Trump blasts ‘too late’ Powell for not cutting interest ratesUS President Donald Trump renewed his criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, accusing him of being too slow to cut interest rates and escalating a long-running conflict that risks undermining the central bank’s political independence.With the European Central Bank (ECB) cutting interest rates again on April 17, “Too Late” Powell has failed to act appropriately in the United States, even with inflation falling, Trump said on Truth Social on April 17. “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” Trump said.Florida Senator Rick Scott agreed with the president, saying, “it’s time for new leadership at the Federal Reserve.”Trump’s public criticism of the Fed breaks a decades-long convention in American politics that sought to safeguard the central bank from political scrutiny, which includes any executive decision to replace the chair. In an April 16 address at the Economic Club of Chicago, Powell said Fed independence is “a matter of law.” Powell previously signaled his intent to serve out the remainder of his tenure, which expires in May 2026. AI tokens, memecoins dominate crypto narratives in Q1 2025: CoinGeckoThe cryptocurrency market is recycling old narratives, with few new trends emerging to replace the leading themes in the first quarter of 2025.Artificial intelligence tokens and memecoins were the dominant crypto narratives in the first quarter of 2025, accounting for 62.8% of investor interest, according to a quarterly research report by CoinGecko. AI tokens captured 35.7% of global investor interest, overtaking the 27.1% share of memecoins, which remained in second place.Out of the top 20 crypto narratives of the quarter, six were memecoin categories while five were AI-related.“Seems like we have yet to see another new narrative emerge and we are still following past quarters’ trends,” said Bobby Ong, the co-founder and chief operating officer of CoinGecko, in an April 17 X post. “I guess we are all tired from the same old trends repeating themselves.”Interest in memecoins saw a sharp increase ahead of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 after his team launched the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin on Jan. 18 and the Official Melania (MELANIA) token on Jan. 19 on the Solana network.However, some industry watchers are concerned that memecoins are draining capital from utility tokens, such as Solana (SOL), limiting their price potential.Coinbase distances Base from highly criticized memecoin that dumped $15 millionCrypto exchange Coinbase has distanced its blockchain network Base from a memecoin it shared on X on April 16 that saw massive backlash after the token rapidly gained, then dropped in value.Base shared an image on X with its marketing tagline, “Base is for everyone,” alongside a link to a token of the same name on Zora, a social network where users can make posts into crypto tokens.The token hit a peak market capitalization of $17.1 million just over an hour after it was created before it then dropped by nearly 90% in the next 20 minutes to $1.9 million before making a recovery.A Coinbase spokeswoman distanced Base from the token, telling Cointelegraph that “Base did not launch a token. This is not an official Base token, and Base did not sell this token.”“Base posted on Zora, which automatically tokenizes content,” the spokeswoman said.Hundreds of X posts criticized Base over the token, while others argued Base just poorly executed a plan to try to redefine memecoins.Base creator Jesse Pollack also defended Base's creation of the token, saying on X that “someone has to normalize putting all of our content onchain. I'm not afraid for it to be us.”