U.S. markets closed sharply higher Wednesday following Republican and pro-crypto candidate Donald Trump's victory over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. As the election results started to favor a Trump win, overnight trading kicked into high gear.
On the cryptocurrency front, the price of bitcoin surged to hit a new all-time high Tuesday evening and continued Wednesday. The world's largest cryptocurrency traded around $76,000 at publication time, up 9.8% according to The Block's BTC price page.
The Dow closed Wednesday's trading session up 3.5% to 43,729.93, while the S&P 500 gained 2.5% to close at 5,929.04. The tech-heavy Nasdaq closed at 18,983.46, up 2.9%. The GMCI 30, which represents the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market cap, is up 9.7% to 132.86. The index has risen 33.6% in the year-to-date period.
The combination surge in bitcoin and market indices led to a strong day for crypto-related equities. Coinbase led the way, rising more than 31%, according to Yahoo Finance. This comes just a week after falling 15% following third-quarter earnings.
“I hope the SEC understands what has happened tonight. On many, many issues, the voters said loud and clear that they want change. Crypto is no exception,” said Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal. “Stop suing crypto. Start talking to crypto. Initiate rulemaking now. There's no reason to wait.”
The crypto exchange was followed by a slew of bitcoin miners like Cipher Mining, which saw shares close up more than 30% higher. Other bitcoin mining companies like Iris Energy, Cleanspark, Terawulf, Riot Platforms and MARA saw shares surge more than 20% on the day.
Corporate bitcoin holder MicroStrategy also benefits, seeing a 13% pop in share price.
A big part of the trading frenzy came courtesy of Robinhood, the commission-free brokerage for retail traders. The company said equities had their biggest-ever overnight session since launching its "24 Hour Market" (8 p.m. to 4 a.m.), with 11 times its usual overnight notional volume.
Of the top 10 most-traded stocks, three were directly related to crypto: Coinbase, MicroStrategy and IBIT. Robinhood's top traded cryptocurrencies were BTC, ETH and DOGE. Last week, the brokerage said crypto trading volumes grew 112% year-over-year to $14.4 billion in the third quarter, down from $21.5 billion in the second quarter and $36 billion in the first quarter of this year.
Notably, BlackRock’s IBIT spot bitcoin ETF experienced heightened trading volumes of $1 billion within the first 20 minutes of today's regular trading session.
"Damn, IBIT has seen $1 billion in volume in the first 20min, that's about what it does in full day," Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas posted to X. "Other bitcoin ETFs in same boat, crazy volume. Set for a record-breaking volume day."
All 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs closed Wednesday's trading session higher by at least 8%.
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