A bitcoin rally is grabbing the spotlight, in part because some investors view the climb as a sign that markets anticipate a victory for pro-crypto Republican candidate Donald Trump in the US presidential election.
The digital asset is up about 13% in the past seven days, well ahead of a global stock gauge and gold. Billionaire Stan Druckenmiller cited crypto as among the indicators that markets are pricing in a win for the former president.
Trump has vowed to make the US the crypto capital of the planet as he duels for votes in a tight race against Democratic rival, vice President Kamala Harris. His embrace of the sector led to bitcoin’s classification as a so-called Trump trade — one of a series of wagers predicated on his return to the White House.
The bitcoin advance came alongside shifts in prediction markets, controversial platforms of disputed informational value where people can bet on election outcomes. Trump’s odds on the Polymarket platform have jumped to 58%, while Harris has dropped to 41%. On PredictIt, Trump’s chances are at 54%, compared with 49% for Harris.
“Excitement in prediction markets is leading to high levels of implied volatility and a rally in spot-bitcoin prices,” said Arisa Toyosaki, co-founder of Cega, a crypto derivatives service provider. “The recent significant inflows into bitcoin exchange-traded funds are also fuelling the rally.”
Net inflows into a group of a dozen US bitcoin ETFs have topped $1.6-billion since 11 October. The token was trading at about US$67 781 as of 7.20am SAST on Friday, compared with March’s record of $73 798.
Margin of error
While prediction markets have moved in Trump’s favour, the spread in most polls is well within the margin of error with less than three weeks to election day. Harris leads Trump by about 1.6 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls. Trump is ahead by less than one percentage point in the equivalent measure for battleground states.
Harris has adopted a nuanced position on crypto, pledging to support a regulatory framework for digital assets as well as industry growth under appropriate safeguards. Her position spurred a bout of optimism among crypto traders as it contrasts with a crackdown under the Biden administration.
Read: Trump touts himself as the bitcoin president
Crypto’s emergence as an election issue “is driving a lot of attention to bitcoin and the broader crypto asset class, and that attention is being translated into sentiment, and sentiment — as we know — leads to flows”, Crucible Capital general partner Meltem Demirors said.
Trump’s embrace of the sector is an about-face as he once dubbed it a scam. Digital-asset firms have become influential players in the election through big donations to political action committees in pursuit of friendlier rules.
Druckenmiller said the market during the past 12 days seemed “very convinced” of a Trump win. “You can see it in the bank stocks, you can see it in crypto,” he said. — Suvashree Ghosh, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP