blockworks.co
This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.
As the work week kicks off, bitcoin clocked another Monday surge — this time to $69,000.
We had reported on BTC eclipsing $69k earlier this month, before retreating. Similarly to a week ago, the asset dropped today following its breach of that mark. It settled at roughly $68,980 by 2 pm ET — flat over the week, but up 1.5% from 24 hours ago.
VanEck crypto research head Matthew Sigel noted this morning on CNBC that bitcoin, which had lagged with low volatility before the 2020 election, is doing the same now. Four years ago, there was a high-vol rally for BTC after the election.
Forward Guidance’s own Felix Jauvin briefly weighed in on those thoughts via X:
“What we think is that once the election result is finalized, Moody’s is going to downgrade US sovereign debt and that could be a catalyst for bitcoin to catch up,” Sigel said.
Those wanting to know who will win probably won’t get much help from the polls.
Two polls published Sunday showed VP Kamala Harris with a slight edge over challenger Donald Trump (51% to 47% among likely voters in an ABC News poll, and 50% to 49% in one by CBS News).
We previously noted how various polls last week (by CNBC, the Wall Street Journal and HarrisX/Forbes) had Trump leading by two percentage points. Going by the New York Times’s polling average, Harris’s less than one-percentage-point lead is her smallest since mid-August.
Republican poll gains could account for some of the big net inflows bitcoin ETFs have seen of late (roughly $3.4 billion since Oct. 11), according to CoinShares.
“All else equal, BTC is likely to run higher into the election to front-run a potential Trump win,” said GSR research head Brian Rudick.
While he expects a crypto price surge if Trump is indeed elected, longer-term post-election BTC price gains will depend on whether the former president delivers on his crypto promises.
The market “knee-jerk reaction” is likely lower if Harris wins, but downside could be limited (and the market may even move up) for several reasons, Rudick explained. Two of those are that the uncertainty of the winner will no longer exist and Harris appears set to be more crypto-friendly than the current administration.
“And third, prices are roughly around the levels as [they were] when politicians first began to embrace crypto, suggesting there isn’t too much priced in for a more positive US stance,” Rudick said.
For Ledn CIO John Glover, the focus remains on BTC’s technical levels.
“If it breaks $73,000, I anticipate upward momentum regardless of immediate political outcomes,” he told me.
Not far off from Rudick, Glover views a Trump-spurred lift or Harris-driven pullback as more likely temporary responses, given what he expects to be insubstantial crypto policy differences from the administrations.
He expects BTC to aim for $80k after the election dust settles, with a possible retreat below $70k before pushing toward $100k in late Q1/early Q2 2025.
Glover added: “BTC’s trajectory is driven more by the increase in overall demand as investors continue to add bitcoin to their investment mix than by political changes in the 6- to 12-month horizon.”