10/16 update below. This post was originally published on October 16
Bitcoin
Bitcoin
The bitcoin price has shot toward $70,000 per bitcoin, up from under $60,000 last week, as MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor reveals his huge $100 trillion “endgame.”
Now, as Tesla billionaire Elon Musk warns the U.S. could collapse into “bankruptcy,” the sale of a new cryptocurrency backed by former U.S. president Donald Trump has sent the bitcoin price and crypto market sharply higher—as Trump’s odds of retaking the White House next month climb.
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Former U.S. president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has leaned into bitcoin and … [+]
“There are just three weeks to go until the U.S. election. If we can believe Polymarket, Trump now has a 56% chance of winning the presidency and a Republican sweep is now at 39%,” Geoff Kendrick, head of crypto research at Standard Chartered Bank, said in an emailed note, referring the odds on the crypto-powered Polymarket betting platform.
“That means that in conditional probability space if Trump wins there is a 70% chance of a Republican sweep. Digital Assets have finally started to move higher on this.”
10/16 update: Donald Trump has posted a video on X, declaring “crypto is the future” and calling on people to “embrace this incredible technology and lead the world in the digital economy.”
In the video, Trump directed people to the website of his new crypto project, World Liberty Finance, despite the website struggling to stay online.
Only $9 million worth of the new cryptocurrency have been sold, it was reported by Coindesk, badly missing estimates of $300 million worth of sales.
“Within a month of the presidential election, many in the crypto industry are skeptical about the timing and substance of Trump’s venture,” Lorenzo Valente, research associate at bitcoin, crypto and tech investor Ark, said in emailed comments, adding the platform’s hiring of experienced crypto advisors had somewhat dampened criticism.
Kendrick has previously put his bitcoin price prediction at $125,000 per bitcoin if Trump retakes the White House compared to $75,000 under vice president and Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris.
Trump’s adoption of bitcoin and crypto via his family’s World Liberty Financial crypto project and his non-fungible token (NFT
APENFT
Speaking earlier this year at a bitcoin conference, Trump promised to create a U.S. bitcoin strategic reserve if reelected and predicted the bitcoin price could eventually eclipse gold.
World Liberty Financial’s new WLFI cryptocurrency went on sale today, selling some 220 million tokens to more than 1,700 unique wallets within the first twenty minutes, it was reported by Coindesk.
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The bitcoin price has suddenly surged this morning, climbing toward its all-time high of over … [+]
Trump’s sons Don Jr. and Eric are deeply involved in the World Liberty Financial crypto project, while Trump himself is titled “chief crypto advocate” and his son Barron the “DeFi visionary.”
“Well over 100,000 people” joined the so-called whitelist to take part in the Trump-backed World Liberty Financial decentralized finance project’s WLFI cryptocurrency sale, according to cofounder Zachary Folkman.
The WLFI cryptocurrency, a governance coin designed to allow holders to vote on the project’s direction, had been predicted to raise around $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, though U.S.-based buyers must be “accredited investors.”
Speaking on an X Spaces broadcast this week, Folkman said World Liberty Financial will allow users to borrow and lend crypto, create and interact with liquidity pools and transact with stablecoins.