Bitcoin’s price is up for the day amid Election Day volatility—but some other cryptocurrencies are seeing even larger gains.
BTC jumped above $70,500 on Tuesday but then dipped below the $69,000, evening out at a price of approximately $69,400 as of this writing. It’s still up by 3% over the past 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows. Over the past seven days, Bitcoin has dropped by 4% following a close call with an all-time price record last week.
But some major altcoins have jumped even higher, with Dogecoin (DOGE) rising 7% to a price just below $0.17, and Solana (SOL) and Avalanche (AVAX) popping by about 5%. Other meme coins like BONK and Cat in a Dog’s World (MEW) are even outpacing Dogecoin on the day.
Industry observers and traders are expecting Bitcoin to jump or dip significantly today, and in the coming days, following the results of the U.S. election.
Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump has branded himself the pro-crypto candidate this year, saying he wants all future Bitcoin on U.S. soil and vowing to protect the nascent industry. Current Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has said little about digital assets, but has signaled plans to be friendlier than Joe Biden’s administration (in which she serves) and has said she will push for regulation.
In the past 24 hours, $248 million worth of crypto futures have been liquidated across all assets, CoinGlass data shows. Of that figure, about $145 million in long positions—that is, traders speculating on the future price of digital coins and tokens to go up—have had their bets closed. A total of $103 million were short positions.
All told, over $69 million worth of Bitcoin positions were liquidated, with shorts outpacing the longs as of this writing.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas told Decrypt that Bitcoin was a good asset to watch today amid Election Day action, as it has been talked about so much by Donald Trump during his election. The March approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has allowed more investors than ever before to get exposure to the cryptocurrency.
Edited by Andrew Hayward