Bitcoin is on a tear as 'crypto president' Trump's betting-market odds climb
Johnnie Izquierdo for The Washington Post via Getty Images
- Bitcoin has surged 12% as Trump's election odds in betting markets began rising in mid-September.
- Trump's crypto-friendly stance has boosted investor enthusiasm for bitcoin as his betting odds rise.
- Analysts predict a Trump win could significantly influence the crypto industry's future.
Investors are getting excited by the prospect of getting a "crypto president" in Donald Trump, with the price of bitcoin popping in the last month as the former president has gained ground in betting markets.
According to the betting website Polymarket, Trump's odds of winning the Presidential election in November bottomed on September 18.
Since then, the price of bitcoin has surged 12% and is just a few percentage points away from a fresh record high. The token was trading at $66,857 on Thursday afternoon.
The gains for the cryptocurrency accelerated in early October when Trump overtook Kamala Harris among bettors as the favored winner.
Markets have been broadly behaving like Trump will win next month, but bitcoin and crypto have been standouts in the Trump trade.
Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller highlighted the dynamic in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday, noting the market seems "very convinced Trump is going to win."
He added: "You can see it in the bank stocks, you can see it in crypto."
Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani said last month that a Trump win could be monumental for the crypto industry.
"Crypto is the rare instance, where the difference in election outcome could determine the destiny of the industry," Chhugani said, adding that he expects bitcoin to soar to $90,000 if Trump wins.
Trump's embrace of the crypto industry has been years in the making.
The former president addressed the Bitcoin Conference in July with a 45-minute speech, and has talked about crypto policy in nearly every speech since. He's also released several NFT collections over the past two years.
At the Bitcoin Conference over the summer, Trump said he'd lay out a plan "to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world."
This past week, Trump was part of the launch of a crypto token called World Liberty Financial.
Bitcoin might be ultimately front-running a potential Trump win in November, with the cryptocurrency up 59% year-to-date.
"Elections remain hard to call, but if you are long crypto here, you are likely taking a Trump trade," Chhugani said.
Yet, investors in the world's largest cryptocurrency could also be getting ahead themselves, as betting market websites like Polymarket aren't a perfect indicator of election odds.
While Polymarket shows the odds of Trump winning in November rose to 62% on Thursday, the polls are telling a very different story. According to the latest polling, the election is still too close to call with both candidates virtually tied or within the margin of error in the major battleground states.
The sharp divergence in Trump's betting market odds and the polls has even led some to speculate that someone might be making massive bets on Trump in an illiquid betting market to make it appear that he's more likely to win the election.
Internet speculation has swirled around the identity of a single "whale" who has bet as much as $25 million via multiple accounts on Polymarket, single-handedly boosting Trump's betting odds on the platform.