Bitcoin surged to a new all-time high just above $75,000 on cryptocurrency exchanges Binance, Coinbase, and others on Wednesday morning in Asia as election results favoring pro-crypto Republican candidate Donald Trump began to be announced.
BTC has increased 7.5% in the past 24 hours, surging in the past two hours alongside Trump's odds in the betting market Polymarket, where players currently give him an 85% chance of winning the U.S. presidential election. Traders largely view Trump's victory as a bullish move for the industry compared to Democrat Kamala Harris, who is not seen as very friendly to cryptocurrencies.
Data from Coinglass indicates that part of the reason for BTC's spike could be due to the liquidation of $94 million in bearish bets or hedges against this asset. Additionally, BTC is currently trading at a significant premium on the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, indicating new demand in the U.S.
Meanwhile, DOGE has risen nearly 20% since Tuesday, extending its 30-day gain to over 65%, becoming the largest performing token.
Futures contracts tracking DOGE recorded over $30 million in short liquidation trades in the past 24 hours, an unusually high figure, indicating that part of its move was due to covering losing bets. Open interest, or the number of outstanding futures bets, on DOGE has reached 8.30 billion tokens as of Wednesday compared to 7 billion tokens on Monday — indicating strong demand and expectations of further market volatility.
DOGE has generally risen after being endorsed by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk as part of the Republican campaign. Musk proposed a Department of Government Efficiency — abbreviated as DOGE; a clear acknowledgment of the token — as an agency that would help with more effective government spending and monetary planning.
Optimism surrounding DOGE is showing signs of spreading to dog-themed tokens, with shiba inu (SHIB), floki (FLOKI), and bonk (BONK) rising over 10%. Sector tokens have risen an average of 16%, surpassing the 7.2% gain in the broad CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index.
The initial trend from the Associated Press shows Trump winning in Kentucky, Florida, West Virginia, and four other electoral votes, far ahead of opponent Kamala Harris. At the time of the press report, Trump was leading the election map with a score of 198 to 99, according to the Associated Press.