Investing.com — Recent strength in Bitcoin is being driven by an improvement on betting websites in Donald Trump’s odds of winning the 2024 US election, according to analysts at Bernstein.
Although both Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris have both indicated support for digital assets, crypto markets have strengthened in correlation with the former president’s chances of emerging victorious in the Nov. 5 ballot, the analysts noted.
Despite polls suggesting that Harris holds a narrow lead nationally and the race is a virtual toss-up across several key battleground states, online prediction markets have shown a rise in Trump’s chances of winning a second four-year term in the White House.
Bets on Kalshi, which was recently granted court approval to carry out election betting in the US for the first time, give Trump a 57% edge, compared to 43% for Harris. At the same time, Polymarket has the contest at 60% for Trump and about 40% for Harris.
Bitcoin, meanwhile, has jumped by 16.6% over the last one-month period, as of 07:20 ET (11:20 GMT) on Wednesday. The world’s most popular digital token was exchanging hands at $67,887.9, a 24-hour increase of 3.4%, as it appeared to have broken out of a $50,000 to $65,000 trading range seen through most of the year.
“[T]he Bitcoin market strength is recent and reflective of the current spike in Trump odds,” the Bernstein analysts said in a note to clients.
Trump has maintained a largely pro-crypto stance in recent campaigning despite previously calling Bitcoin a “scam”. This week, his World Liberty Financial crypto project went live, with reports stating that it raised at least $220 million in token sales.
Harris, for her part, has vowed to form a definite regulatory framework for crypto, although she did not elaborate on the details.
