Bitcoin Hits New Record Above $75K as Trump Dominates Early Voting

Bitcoin jumped to a new all-time high just above $75,000 on crypto exchanges Binance, Coinbase and others in Asian morning hours Wednesday as favorable election results for crypto-friendly Republican Donald Trump began to roll in.

BTC was up 7.5% in the past 24 hours, rising sharply in the last two hours alongside Trump’s odds on betting marketplace Polymarket, where punters now give him an 85% chance of winning the U.S. presidency. Traders largely view a Trump win as bullish for the industry compared to Democrat Kamala Harris, who isn’t perceived as overly crypto-friendly.

Part of BTC’s spike could be attributed to a $94 million liquidation of bearish or hedged bets against the asset, Coinglass data shows. In addition, BTC is now trading at a notable premium on crypto exchange Coinbase, indicating renewed stateside demand.

DOGE, meanwhile, has been up nearly 20% since Tuesday, extending 30-day gains to over 65%, making it the best-performing major token.

Futures tracking DOGE recorded over $30 million in short liquidations over the past 24 hours, an unusually high figure, suggesting part of its move was driven by covering losing bets. Open interest, or the number of unsettled futures bets, on DOGE is up to 8.30 billion tokens as of Wednesday compared to 7 billion tokens on Monday — showing brisk demand and expectations of further market movements.

DOGE has generally risen after a renewed endorsement by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk as part of the Republican campaign. Musk has been proposing a Department of Government Efficiency — abbreviated as D.O.G.E; a clear nod to the token — as an agency that will make government spending and monetary planning more effective.

A parody D.O.G.E token on Ethereum is up 77% in the past 24 hours, and is up 500% since a CoinDesk analysis first flagged demand for the memecoin among some traders.

Bullish sentiment for DOGE is showing signs of spilling over to dog-themed tokens, with SHIB$0.0₅8384, FLOKI$0.0₄4789 and BONK$0.0₄1074 up over 10%. Sector tokens have gained 16% on average, beating a 7.2% rise in the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20) majors index.

Early trends by the Associated Press showed Trump winning Kentucky, Florida, West Virginia, and another four electoral college votes, outpacing his rival Kamala Harris. At press time, Trump leads the electoral map 198 to 99, according to the Associated Press.