The most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC), jumped above USD 14,000 for the second time in a day, reaching almost three-year highs, while crypto prediction markets increasingly favor the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, over the still-President Donald Trump in a nail-biting US presidential election.
At pixel time (17:26 UTC), BTC trades at USD 14,152 and is up by 3% in a day and more than 8% in a week, reaching a level last seen in January 2018. Other major coins are also in the green today, while ethereum (ETH) is the best performer as it rallied on ETH 2.0 news. US stocks, bonds also rallied today.
Meanwhile, according to predictions markets, there is a 17% (71% earlier today) chance that Trump will win the race, compared with 84% (29% earlier today) in the case of Biden.
The Trump 2020 futures contract on crypto derivatives exchange FTX crashed to USD 0.17, while the Biden 2020 contract jumped to USD 0.84. These tokens allow people to speculate on the outcome of the election by buying tokens that can be redeemed for USD 1 if a candidate wins and USD 0 if they lose.
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For now, Biden secured 238 electoral votes out of necessary 270, while Trump has 213, according to Bloomberg data. While Reuters and some other sources claim that Biden has 227 votes, Trump – 213. In either case, results are still coming in. Also, according to Bloomberg, close contests in five key states mean the US presidential election may not be decided for days, or longer.
