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Two weeks have passed since the US Presidential election result sent BTC to new heights and sparked some of the most recent bullish events.
What has changed in the crypto-land since Donald Trump won the election?
Coinglass data show that BTC’s price rose by 8.8% on Election Day, Nov. 5. The next few days saw modest gains before BTC’s daily price increased by 4.8% and then 10.2% respectively on Nov. 9, Nov. 10 and Nov. 11. Next, a 4.2% increase on November 14.
By Bitfinex analysts’ count, BTC rose roughly 40% (from the pre-election selloff point of about $66,880 to a then-peak $93,300) — marking the largest nine-day price increase for BTC since January 2021.
Bitcoin reached a new record high of $94,900 on early Wednesday. It was hovering around $93,800 at 2 pm ET — up 1.5% from 24 hours prior.
Everyone was reminded, aside from the price, of Trump’s crypto pledges. With the Republicans in control of both the House and Senate there are many hopes for the US to create a strategic reserve (through a bill introduced by Sen. Cynthia Lummis).
Lummis expressed her hope for a better future in an X-space yesterday. “we can tee this up for adoption in 2025.” She said that the US could start converting gold certificates into bitcoins (even before a bill is passed) after Trump’s inauguration.
“The advantage of having legislation is it sets up the functional basis for the government holding bitcoin in a variety of locations, and then helping states hold their bitcoin as well,” She said
Pennsylvania legislators introduced a bill that allowed the state treasury’s balance sheet to include BTC.
There are also companies that have followed MicroStrategy in purchasing bitcoins for their treasuries, or plan to do so. MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor told Lummis on the same X Space that if US creates a bitcoin strategic reserve, then others will follow. “stampede to keep up” — namely the EU, Asia and Brazil.
“This is all about laying in place a power infrastructure to build the 21st century economy that’s so incredibly compelling that it attracts the capital from the rest of the world into the United States and into US values and US politics,” Saylor added.
In the days following the November 6th election, the US spot bitcoin ETFs saw net inflows around $5 billion.
Matt Hougan (CIO of Bitwise) told me that the election result was a bit odd. “removes the last vestige of reputational risk from crypto” — noting he expects institutional ownership to follow “an exponential curve from Q1 onwards.”
And Jersey City’s mayor and business administrator told me last week the city’s pension fund was just about ready to allocate to bitcoin ETFs — undeterred even given the latest price increase.
Ether products were also in high demand. They brought in $796 millions in the six days after the elections. Despite net outflows in the past four days, flows for the category remain positive since July.
The positive sentiment surrounding the space is evident in many ways, not just through price increases fueled by purchases and fund flows.
Robinhood seemed to be riding the wave of regulatory positivity by adding solana to its platform. ETF issuers also may be betting on a more lenient SEC. Bitwise for example proposed to convert its Crypto Index Fund into an ETF after the elections.
As options on US spot bitcoin ETFs received the final regulatory approval, a more recent amended ETF application for a Grayscale Bitcoin Covered-Call ETF was filed.
What am I missing?
If confirmed, Trump’s nomination of Cantor-Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as the head of the Department of Commerce will put another crypto-friendly individual in a powerful role.
And then there’s the conversation between Trump and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong — reportedly in part about personnel appointments.
What is the most important thing to keep an eye on right now? The CEO of the Blockchain Association, Kristin Smits, has some thoughts on this:
Mark Uyeda, SEC commissioner and former Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Brian Brooks are two candidates who have been identified by industry watchers as possible candidates to replace Gary Gensler in the SEC chair position. However, we do not yet know Trump’s opinion on this matter.
We’ve been writing a lot. There’s no shortage of stories to tell in the future. Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz was probably understating the prediction.
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