US Congressman Mike Collins buys ETH worth $80k

Republican Mike Collins, who was re-elected to the US House of Representatives in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District, holds Ethereum.

According to the Quiver Quantitative platform, Collins announced that he invested approximately $80,000 in Ethereum (ETH). The platform, which tracks investment purchases and transactions of important public figures, shared this in a post on X on November 8.

In addition to Ethereum, the lawmaker also reportedly purchased $15,000 worth of Aerodrome (AERO). Aerodrome is an automated market maker and decentralized exchange that acts as the central liquidity hub for Base, a layer-2 network on Ethereum launched by Coinbase.

Representative Collins announced the ETH investment just three days after Donald Trump won the US election in a landslide and cryptocurrencies soared. As sentiment became extremely bullish following Trump’s victory, the Ethereum price rose along with Bitcoin (BTC).

While Bitcoin reached an all-time high above $76,000, the price of ETH rose to $2,957 on November 8.

However, the native token of the smart contracts platform, which is the largest home of decentralized finance protocols, has not yet experienced a rise like BTC. ETH is still around 40% behind the ATH level of over $4.8K reached in May 2021 and has yet to master the challenge to return to its year-to-date high of over $4K reached in March.

While she is not the first member of Congress to announce that she holds cryptocurrency as part of her portfolio, Collins’ move points to a possible new trend as the crypto industry leaves a mark on the US legislative map with the highest number of pro-crypto elected candidates.

The sentiment towards the US crypto market is also largely positive, as the industry looks to leave behind the negative regulatory approach through the enforcement of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Over the past four years, the SEC, under Chairman Gary Gensler, has embraced a crackdown that critics say threatens to drive the United States to the back of the line in terms of crypto and blockchain innovation.

Trump has vowed to fire Gensler as soon as he takes office.