Bitcoin spiked to a new all-time high above $76,600 on Thursday amid bullish sentiment around Donald Trump’s election victory.
The Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by 25 basis points and indicate further tightening also buoyed markets.
Analysts say the influx of ‘cheap capital’ could strengthen the bull market.
Bitcoin rose for the third day in a row to hit a new all-time high above $76,000.
Per data from CoinGecko, the flagship cryptocurrency touched highs of $76,677 across major exchanges on Nov. 7. This comes after BTC broke to a new all-time high above $75k on Nov. 5 with news of Donald Trump winning the US presidential election.
The top crypto also moved higher to break above $76k as Kamala Harris conceded defeat and as US president Joe Biden confirmed he’d hand over power to the incoming 47th president.
On Nov. 7, Bitcoin price made a new all-time high above $76.6k as the Federal Reserve announced a 25 basis points interest rate cut. The news coming on the back of Trump’s win added to the positive buzz across the risk asset markets.
Fed’s rate cut is the second one after the 50 bps cut in September. The move follows slowing inflation data and a cooler jobs market. The market is likely to rally higher given Fed’s rate cut and Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks. Is “cheap capital” set to enter the market? Investor and entrepreneur Anthony Pompliano thinks so.
BTC led cryptocurrencies in a brief pump, with Ethereum, Solana and BNB recording some notable gains.
ETH for instance crossed the $2,880 mark with an intraday surge from $2,717. SOL broke into the top four by market cap after surging to near $198, flipping BNB with its market cap above $92.8 billion.
Meanwhile, BNB crossed $600 for the first time since late October as it hit highs above $610. The coin’s market cap as of writing was $87.3 billion.
Bitcoin reached a high of $75,317 in the early hours of this morning
In September, Bernstein analysts predicted Bitcoin to reach between $80,000 and $90,000 by the end of 2024 if Trump won
Unity’s COO said to CoinJournal said it was “disingenuous” to say Trump winning the US election was the sole reason Bitcoin’s price went up
Bitcoin rose to a record high of over $75,000 early this morning as voting results signalled a Donald Trump win for the White House.
Data from CoinMarketCap shows Bitcoin achieved a high of $75,317 around 6:25 this morning. Before the election results started coming in last night, Bitcoin was trading at around $69,000.
However, as the evening progressed and into the early morning, Bitcoin continued an upward trajectory before reaching its new all-time high.
Bitcoin’s last all-time high took place in March when it reached $73,000.
Bitcoin’s all-time high of over $75,000. Source: Coinmarketcap
Data from AP News shows Trump has taken 277 of the electoral results compared to Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ 224.
Will the price rise continue?
While the new high comes amid the US election results, many will be wondering whether this upward movement will continue. In September, Bernstein analysts predicted that Bitcoin could reach between $80,000 and $90,000 by the end of 2024 if Trump won the presidential election.
According to James Toldeano, COO of self-custody wallet Unity, people need to realize that data based on the 2012, 2016, and 2020 US elections doesn’t reveal consistent patterns for the crypto market concerning election results.
“Some have looked at the 2020 election and seen the price rise from $13,760 prior to the election on November 1, to $19,698 following the election on December 1, and immediately asserted it was the election that drove the increase,” said Toldeano to Coinjournal.
In reality, Toldeano added, several factors contributed to the price rise, including US stimulus payments, increasing interest from companies like MicroStrategy buying Bitcoin, and people seeing Bitcoin as a safe investment during the Covid pandemic.
“While the election happened during this time, it’s disingenuous to say it directly caused the price increase,” he said.
In the long-term, it won’t be the election that moves the crypto market, but “broader macroeconomic events, technological advancements, shifting market sentiment, and factors outside of the next President’s control,” Toldeano explained.
Pro-crypto
Former US President Donald Trump has come across as more crypto-friendly compared to Harris.
In September, Trump became the first US president to use the Bitcoin network. He achieved this after sending a Bitcoin transaction at PubKey, a crypto-themed bar in New York ahead of his campaign rally in Long Island.
On the flip side, Harris has been muted about her stance on crypto despite saying her administration would support a crypto regulatory framework if she became the next US president.
“Incoming President Trump has the power to save crypto in the US where urgent change is needed,” said Jesper Johansen, CEO and founder of Northstake, an Ethereum staking marketplace, to Coinjournal.
“First amongst the new administration’s priorities should be to define staking as an opportunity for US investors,” Johansen continued. “The question still lingers: is staking a commodity or a security?”
Johansen said that $6 billion is sitting in Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which aren’t being staked, meaning investors are missing out on economic opportunities. According to Johansen, this could be one of the reasons why the uptake of Ethereum ETFs hasn’t been as popular as Bitcoin ETFs.
“Once these core issues have been solved, changes are needed within the SEC to ensure that crypto is viewed as a vehicle of innovation, rather than something to be feared,” he added.
Ahead of the election, Trump said he’d remove Gary Gensler, chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); however, it remains to be seen whether this will happen because the SEC is an independent federal agency.
At the time of publishing, Bitcoin is trading at around $74,000.
Bitcoin spiked to above $75,400, a new all-time high.
This came as Donald Trump clinched the US presidency, beating Kamala Harris.
Bitcoin rose to new all-time high above $75,000 as world leaders began to congratulate Donald Trump as the winner and president-elect in the 2024 US election.
As Trump took a decisive lead with key wins in Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, pushing his Electoral College votes past the 270 mark, Bitcoin price rocketed past $75k to hit a new all-time high above$75,400.
The flagship cryptocurrency has since retraced below $74k, but its sharp surge had over half a billion dollars liquidated. Per Coinglass, 124,734 traders saw their positions liquidated in the past 24 hours, with total liquidations at more than $557 million.
BTC liquidations stood at over $273 million, with more than 70% of that – $211 million – in shorts. Crypto is overall extremely bullish on a Trump presidency and analysts say dips in coming months will offer buy opportunities.
Trump’s pro-crypto stance
As the election cycle slowly comes to an end, key to the crypto industry is that the most “pro-crypto” candidate has won. World leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, India’s Narendra Modi and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, have all congratulated Trump on his victory.
Dear Donald and Melania Trump,
Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback!
Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) November 6, 2024
The US president-elect has also given a victory speech.
But while the market celebrates, what remains to be seen is whether he keeps the pledges he made during the campaign. These include two pledges for “day one” in office: fire US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler and commute the sentence of Ross Ulbright.
Last night, Donald Trump pledged to commute my sentence on day 1, if reelected. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
After 11 years in prison, it is hard to express how I feel at this moment. It is thanks to your undying support that I may get a second chance.
He also said he’d make the US the world’s BTC mining hub, support a strategic Bitcoin reserve effort and never allow the creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Despite these pledges, industry experts say a Trump White House will be more supportive of crypto in general. The number of pro-crypto Senate and House Representaives has also increased significantly to suggest the road to regulatory clarity has likely opened up.
Bitcoin’s value has risen over 400% between 2020 and 2024
Solana has increased in value by nearly 4,500% from $1.49 to around $166 in four years
This trajectory of positivity will continue beyond the 2024 US elections, according to Matt Hougan
Bitwise’s CIO has said while Washington can alter the trajectory of the crypto market by speeding things up or slowing them down, it can’t stop it.
In his latest client memo, Matt Hougan wrote about crypto in an election year, claiming that crypto has already won, regardless of who becomes the next President of the United States.
Comparing the state of the crypto market from November 2020 to November 2024, Hougan questioned whether things are better or worse since the last time Americans went to the polls.
Despite several lawsuits from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – notably against Binance, Coinbase, Cumberland DRW, Kraken, and Ripple – the crypto industry has made significant progress.
A four-year difference
Looking between the two US elections, Hougan points out that Bitcoin was trading at $13,677 in November 2020. Fast-forward to November 2024 and Bitcoin is valued at around $69,492, indicating a 408% change.
Ethereum has also seen a positive increase from its humble $388 in 2020 to its now $2,492 in the runup to the 2024 US election. However, it’s Solana that has seen a major increase in price rising nearly 11,000% from $1.49 in 2020 to around $166 in 2024.
Turning to assets under management (AUM), Hougan shows that stablecoin AUM rose from $3.87 billion in November 2020 to $177.83 billion in November 2024, representing a near 4,500% change.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked (TVL) also experienced a healthy boost, jumping from $9.57 billion in 2020 to $139.3 billion in 2024.
“We focus so much in crypto on the moment-by-moment movement of prices that we often lose sight of the long-term trends,” Hougan wrote. “The presidential election provides a nice opportunity to step back and see how far we’ve come.”
What next?
So much has already happened in the crypto market over four years, but will that continue as the market goes beyond the 2024 US election?
In Hougan’s view, the answer is yes. Regardless of who becomes the next POTUS, Hougan said – among other things – that spot crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) inflows will continue, stablecoins will continue to grow, Wall Street will continue to embrace tokenization and real-world assets, blockchains will get faster and cheaper, and real-world applications such as Polymarket will gain mainstream adoption.
“What happens in Tuesday’s election matters, particularly in the short term,” said Hougan. “But as I see it, over the long term Tuesday will prove to be something between a speed bump and a wind gust. Neither is going to stop this train.”
Mt. Gox moved 32,371 Bitcoin to two wallets, amounting to $2.19 billion
The movement follows the transfer of 500 Bitcoin worth more than $35 million
In October, Mt. Gox announced it was pushing its repayment deadline to October 31, 2025
Defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox has moved another $2.19 billion to two unmarked wallets, according to data from blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence.
Of the $2.19 billion, 30,371 Bitcoin was transferred to wallet 1FG2C…Rveoy. The extra 2,000 Bitcoin was sent to a cold wallet before being transferred to wallet 15gNRV…Aok. According to data from Arkham, the movement of Bitcoin comes five days after the exchange moved 500 Bitcoin worth over $35 million.
It’s one of the largest movements the exchange has made this year. In May, it was reported that Mt. Gox had transferred over $9 billion worth of Bitcoin to a new wallet. In July, the platform moved a further $2.8 billion. In both of these instances, it was thought Mt Gox’s trustee was preparing for repayment to creditors.
It may be that this further movement of Bitcoin is related to repaying creditors, something they have been waiting for since a hack caused the exchange to collapse in 2014. In October, Mt. Gox pushed its repayment deadline to October 31, 2025, adding another year from its original date.
Last month, Mt. Gox said the extended deadline was down to two things: creditors not completing the repayment steps and issues arising from the repayment process.
Stephen Mollah said he was Satoshi Nakamoto in front of a dozen journalists in London
Bitcoin core developer Peter Todd was wrongly named as Nakamoto last month in an HBO documentary
Another man has come forward claiming to be the mysterious creator behind Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.
This time, he’s called Stephen Mollah. Taking to the stage at London’s Front Line Club in front of around a dozen journalists, Mollah made the claim with one journalist calling it an “odd set up.”
Live tweeting the event on X, Joe Tidy, a BBC journalist, said: “An odd set up to the press conference as the organiser asked me to pay £500 to attend and appear on stage to ask questions of the billionaire mystery man.”
I’m at a London event billed as the ‘unveiling of the true legal identity of Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto’. An odd set up to the press conference as the organiser asked me to pay £500 to attend and appear on stage to ask questions of the billionaire mystery man. pic.twitter.com/3oTB6qX20U
According to Mollah, he’s claimed he’s Nakamoto before, is currently in a legal dispute about it, and is now ready to provide evidence. He tried to reveal who he was in 2016, but “someone stopped him.”
After an hour of listening to Mollah’s backstory, he failed to provide evidence. Instead, he supplied a series of screenshots that could have easily been faked. When Mollah was asked to move some of the Genesis Bitcoin, he said he would in the ‘next few months.’
Mollah and Charles Anderson, the event organizer, have been accused of fraud when Mollah posed as Nakamoto between November 2022 and October last year. The pair pleaded not guilty at a hearing last month, The Standard reports.
Another one to the list
Mollah joins a growing list of people who have claimed to be Nakamoto or others believe them to be.
Last month, the HBO documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery wrongly named Bitcoin core developer Peter Todd as Nakamoto. Before the big reveal, the documentary also pointed to Blockstream founder Adam Back.
Following the documentary, Todd said he’d been forced underground over fears for his safety.
Others believed to be Nakamoto include late software engineer Hal Finney and computer scientist Nick Szabo.
In May, a UK High Court ruled against Australian Craigt Wright that he was Nakamoto, arguing that Wright had lied “extensively and repeatedly” throughout the trial, further accusing him of presenting “fabricated” evidence to support his claims.
Detailing how the current financial system works, the author proposed introducing a new “electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.”
Trump’s post comes less than a week when the results will be in announcing the next POTUS. Trump and his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris have both been vocal in supporting the crypto industry should they lead the government.
Meanwhile, Trump has said he’ll make America the “crypto capital of the world.” Trump has also backed a crypto project called World Liberty Financial, which plans to launch a stablecoin linked to the US dollar. Raising $14 million in initial funding, the project plans to capitalize on the growing demand for stablecoins.
Tether’s Bitcoin holdings have reached an impressive $4.8 billion, while its gold reserves now stand at $5 billion, reflecting the company’s strategy to bolster its asset base amid rising global demand for its stablecoin, USDT.
Circulation of USDT increases by 30%
This quarter has been particularly notable for Tether, as the circulation of USDT has soared to a record $120 billion, marking a 30% increase in 2024.
This surge adds $27.8 billion year-to-date and positions Tether’s market cap close to that of its competitor, Circle’s USDC, which currently stands at $35 billion according to CoinGecko data.
Tether’s growth is indicative of the increasing reliance on stablecoins within the cryptocurrency ecosystem, driven by greater adoption and market confidence.
Tether expands its US Treasury Bills holdings
Additionally, Tether has significantly expanded its holdings in US Treasury Bills, which now total $84.5 billion, constituting the largest segment of its reserves. This strategic move has contributed to Tether’s robust financial health, with net equity doubling to $14.2 billion from $7 billion at the end of 2023.
Furthermore, through its subsidiary, Tether Investments Limited, the company manages an additional $7.7 billion in assets across sectors such as sustainable energy, Bitcoin mining, and data infrastructure. However, these assets are not included in the reserves backing Tether tokens.
Despite its growth, Tether is currently navigating three civil litigation proceedings involving its holdings and operations. Notably, these cases include a class action related to Bitcoin’s price decline in 2017-2018, a lawsuit stemming from the Celsius bankruptcy, and a dispute over USDT in a non-Tether controlled wallet.
NYSE Arca is seeking regulatory approval to list an ETF of the Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund
Grayscale recently filed to convert the fund to a spot ETF
Securities exchange NYSE Arca is seeking regulatory approval to list a new crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) by Grayscale.
The ETF is aimed at tracking the Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund, which the GBTC issuer launched in 2018.
According to an October 29 filing, the NYSE Arca wants to list the $565 million fund, which Grayscale recently sought approval to convert into a spot ETF. Grayscale’s application came on October 16.
The fund currently holds five spot crypto assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, with BTC weighted at 76.5%, ETH at 16.88%, and SOL at 4.46% as of October 29.
Other digital assets in the Digital Large Cap Fund are Avalanche and XRP, weighted at 0.58% and 1.58%, respectively.
Recently, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) greenlighted the trading of options on NYSE’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETPs). These included Grayscale’s flagship asset GBTC and the Mini Bitcoin Trust BTC.
This comes as the industry continues to witness massive demand and investment in spot Bitcoin ETFs following SEC’s approval in January 2024.
Spot ETFs inflows and holdings
Inflows into spot ETFs, which includes Ether ETFs approved in May, has skyrocketed. According to SoSoValue data, US spot BTC ETFs have seen cumulative net inflows of $23.28 billion.
Meanwhile, total net assets have surpassed $72.55 billion, with this accounting for over 5% of the BTC market cap. BlackRock’s IBIT holds $30 billion in assets.
In a post on X on October 30, Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas shared that spot Bitcoin ETFs were on track to surpass 1 million BTC holdings.
Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin who remains unknown, holds the most BTC today. Satoshi mined the coins in the early years of the flagship digital asset’s launch. Spot ETFs could surpass the 1.1 million figure within the next few days.
BlackRock takes the lead reaching $30 billion in 293 days. JEPI took 1,272 days and Gold managed it in 1,790 days
Spot Bitcoin ETFs could reach one million Bitcoin, surpassing Satoshi Nakamoto by mid-December
BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) has hit $30 billion in assets setting a new record of 293 days, showcasing rising interest in crypto investments.
The milestone from BlackRock comes 10 months after the company launched its spot Bitcoin ETF in January. Then, it was reported that BlackRock had traded $7.5 million shares within the first 10 minutes of launching.
Taking to X, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas, said what BlackRock has achieved is an “all-time record,” adding “the old record was $JEPI which did it in 1,272 days. $GLD took 1,790 days. Unreal.”
Also $IBIT has crossed the $30 billion mark in assets after monster flows and price appreciation yesterday. It hit this milestone in just 293 days, an all time record. The old record was $JEPI which did it in 1,272 days. $GLD took 1,790 days. Unreal… pic.twitter.com/rUskhqhW7b
Balchunas also noted that Bitcoin ETFs could reach one million Bitcoin soon. At the time of publishing, the number sits around 983,000. If such a milestone is reached Balchunas believes that the combined spot Bitcoin ETFs could surpass Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet, which holds 1.1 Bitcoin, by mid-December.
“That said, anything can happen, eg a violent selloff and all this is delayed albeit still inevitable,” he added. “On flip, if prices keep going up, Trump wins, we could see FOMO could kick in and it all happens faster. Stay tuned.”
COUNTDOWN: US spot ETFs are scheduled to hit 1 million bitcoin held by next Wed and pass Satoshi by mid-December (before their first birthday, amazing). They’ve been adding about 17k btc a week. That said, anything can happen, eg a violent selloff and all this is delayed albeit… pic.twitter.com/lsU1xSP2Zd
Decentralized prediction market platform, Polymarket, and, more recently, Robinhood, an investment app, have launched data predicting who will win the US Presidential election on November 5.
At the time of publishing, Polymarket shows former US president Donald Trump in the lead at 67% with Vice President Kamala Harris behind at 33.1%.
