Bitcoin Steady at $67K After Biden’s Withdrawal

Bitcoin (BTC) briefly rose above $68,000 before dropping to $67,500.

The majors rose as BTC gained strength. Ether (ETH) briefly surpassed $3,500, Cardano’s ADA and Solana’s SOL gained as much as 5%, while dogecoin (DOGE) gained more than 8%. The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) Index rose 1.25%. BTC gains began after incumbent US President Joe Biden announced that he would not participate in the November elections. However, following the developments, the probability of Republican candidate Donald Trump winning the election on crypto betting app Polymarket dropped from 71% to 65%. Votes for Vice President Kamala Harris increased from 16% to 30%.

Crypto traders who continue to place political bets via meme coins witnessed the Vice President Kamala Harris-themed KAMA meme coin doubling in value yesterday.

KAMA hit an all-time high of 2.4 cents within minutes of President Joe Biden announcing he was quitting his re-election campaign. With a market cap of $24 million, KAMA is nearly four times larger than the Biden-inspired cryptocurrency BODEN, which fell nearly 50% after Biden’s announcement.

The political upheaval has prompted traders Harris and Biden to create a new wave of tokens on meme coin launchpad Pump.fun, but history suggests the tokens will soon lose value again.

JPMorgan said in a report last week that the bitcoin price is too high compared to its production cost of $43,000 and that any increase would be short-term.

The bank noted that momentum in bitcoin futures has been weak in recent weeks due to BTC liquidations by Gemini creditors, Mt. Gox creditors, and the German government. Liquidations are expected to ease this month.

There is hope for a recovery in Chicago Mercantile Exchange bitcoin futures by August.

The chart shows Bitcoin’s Korea Premium Index, which measures the difference between South Korean and Western stock exchanges. The index fell to almost zero for the first time since November, a sign that retail investors are shrinking in the market. Source: CryptoQuant