Biden Withdrawal Heats Up Crypto Bulls, Bitcoin Briefly Surpasses $68K

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) rose more than 8%.

The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) Index rose by 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%, while the vote for Vice President Kamala Harris increased from 16% to 30%.

“Biden’s withdrawal opens up the possibility that the US government will adopt a more constructive stance towards the digital asset industry after November, regardless of who sits in the White House,” according to Singapore-based crypto research firm Presto.

“It’s not clear yet what path Harris or anyone else will take, but we now have a choice that almost never existed before.”

Trump’s positive outlook on cryptocurrencies has garnered a lot of support from industry players in recent months. Trump is scheduled to appear at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville later this week, which continues to boost sentiment among market watchers.

According to Lucy Hu, senior analyst at Metalpha,

“We expect the market to rally higher as Trump’s key economic policy will be lower interest rates and cheaper borrowing costs. This will boost all risk assets, including bitcoin.”

“We expect BTC to continue to rise in the medium to long term until the 2025 elections.”