His firm position on cryptocurrency may have bolstered Donald Trump’s advantage against incumbent Joe Biden.
Trump has pledged to make the United States a leader in the digital assets business and offered to shorten the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, a person dear to many in the crypto world. During the same time frame, Biden’s “yes” shares on the popular retail trading site PredictIt dropped from 46 cents to 44 cents each. At 44 cents a share, the market is pricing in a 44% probability that he will be re-elected.
Similarly, the odds have shifted for crypto-based Polymarket, which officially prohibits users from the United States. Over the past week, Trump’s platform odds have increased by two percentage points, bringing them to 56%, while Biden’s odds have decreased by the same amount, falling to 37%. Neither contender has shown a significant widening or narrowing of the lead in the polls during the past week.
FiveThirtyEight averages show that Trump’s advantage in the polls has increased by a mere 80 basis points, reaching 1.7%.
The stock market has also shown interest in North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, who some have speculated may be Trump’s running mate. Burgum shares are at 18%, or 18 cents, on Polymarket, a three-point gain, while they are down somewhat at 15 cents on PredictIt. Among established Republicans like Marco Rubio (at 10% on Polymarket and 27% on Polymarket), Burgum lags behind Tim Scott (23% on PredictIt and 27% on Polymarket).
An esoteric disagreement has broken out on Polymarket about the settlement of a contract involving the authorization of ether ETFs by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC still has to approve the S-1 files before trading can start, even if the 19b-4 forms for the ETFs have been authorized.
