Markets
Bitcoin Surges Above $62,500 After Trump Shooting
Bitcoin surges to over $62,500 after the weekend attack on Donald Trumpwhich also appears to have increased the former president’s chances of winning a second term in November. Having cemented himself as the pro-crypto candidate compared to President Joe Biden, Trump’s electoral prospects have become a metric for the cryptocurrency market. BTC is up more than 7% since the failed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. At the time of writing, it is trading at $62,476, up 3.95% in the past 24 hours. The broader digital asset market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), is up 3.32%.
The likelihood of Donald Trump retaking the White House jumped to an all-time high on Saturday after the shooting at the Pennsylvania rally, according to Polymarket traders. The “Yes” shares in Polymarket’s contract on whether Trump will win the presidency rose 10 cents after the incident to 70 cents, meaning the market now sees a 70% chance that he will prevail in the November election. Each share pays $1 if the prediction comes true, and zero if not. Meme tokens named after Trump also surged after the shooting. MAGA, for example, rose 34% on a 24-hour basis to $8.38, according to data from CoinGecko, and the satirical TREMP added 67% to $0.6471. BODEN, a joke asset named after Biden, fell about 15% in 24 hours to $0.0333115.
Alexey Pertsev, co-founder and developer of Tornado Cash, was denied bail by a Dutch court on Friday. Pertsev’s lawyers were seeking bail to allow the Russian to prepare for his appeal proceedings, but the court said that “continuing his detention does not obstruct his ability to prepare his defense,” Keith Cheng, Pertsev’s lawyer, said, according to the report. Pertsev was found guilty of money laundering by a Dutch judge at the s-Hertogenbosch court in May and was given 64 months in prison by the court. The verdict sent shockwaves within the community, leaving many outraged. The case has been described as the most crucial legal case in crypto.