By
Temitope Olatunji
April 18th, 2024
As the U.S. election remains a hot topic for the world, Bitcoin price seems to be on a significant rise and fall trajectory. A price drop even came at a time when BTC blew out its 12th birthday candles.
Over the past couple of days, while the election in the U.S. was coming closer, Bitcoin continued to register an impressive run hitting even several new yearly highs. Bitcoin was heading towards $14,000, and other projects followed suit. Crypto markets on Friday, just before Bitcoin White Paper Day, were mostly all up.
On Saturday, while Bitcoin celebrated the 12th birthday of its white paper’s release, its price surpassed the $14,000 ceiling to reach at $14,028. As a result, the total market cap of all crypto coins increased to $400 billion.
However, things turned sour on Sunday, as BTC suffered a 2.6% dropped in a matter of 10 minutes, and just this morning, Ethereum also dropped by 4.3%, according to data from AAX – the London Stock Exchange-powered world’s first digital asset exchange. Other projects followed the trend as Monero continued its weekly 3.11% while Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, and XRP got a sub 2% hit.
Besides, Bitcoin price significantly came down after the birthday celebrations, almost $7 billion of the total market cap had been wiped within 24 hours. As of the time of writing, one day before the U.S. election, Bitcoin was trading at a price of $13,366.25 (just 2.67% down in the last 24 hrs) as per CoinMarketCap.
DeFi Tokens Experienced a Rough Month
DeFi space also had a rough October as it witnessed numerous comedowns. Cryptocurrency locked in decentralized finance smart contracts reduced in amount at the end of October compared to those that were when the month was beginning.
Several analysts even questioned whether the DeFi Bubble was Popping as that was the first time this occurred since the commencing of this summer’s DeFi craze. The difference was just small, however, just 0.28 billion ($11 billion on October 31 while it was $11.28 billion on October 1), which made others conclude that it had past the blistering growth rates era and is now entering the consolidation phase.
Uncertainty during Election Period
Stock markets have not had a different story, either. Over the weekend, an up and down trajectory was seen in the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq Futures. With less than 24 hrs into the U.S. election, investors seem to be ready for short-term turmoil in the markets. In addition, the stakeholders are fronting for a long-discussed stimulus package that would boost stocks a boost during the expected tough fourth quarter.
While a couple of conservative analysts say that Trump win would also favor the markets, other market watchers expect a decisive Biden win and Democrat takeover of both houses for the markets to perform better. Pro-Trumps, on the other hand, argue that a Joe Biden presidency would result in a higher corporate tax rate that would hurt stocks.
Elections are sometimes unpredictable – for instance, Hillary Clinton expected to win in 2016, but Trump won. At that time, the market adjusted to the surprise result, thereby creating huge asset-price swings. As per Trump’s rhetoric preceding the election, the chances are that the election result might be contested. So, irrespective of what side you might lean on, the certain thing is to expect a bumpy ride.