SINGAPORE – 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 per cent in the past seven days, well ahead of a global stock gauge and gold. Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller cited crypto as among the indicators that markets are pricing in a win for the former 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 on Bloomberg Television.
Trump has vowed to make the United States the crypto capital of the world 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.
In a Bloomberg Television interview on Oct 16, Mr 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.
Net inflows into a group of a dozen US Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have topped US$1.6 billion (S$2.1 billion) since Oct 11 inclusive. The token was little changed at about US$67,260 as at 12.58pm on Oct 17 in Singapore, compared with March’s record of US$73,798.
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
