Bitcoin has repriced rapidly since the US election result, in a move that some observers are calling the Trump trade, while others assert that gains were overdue anyway. And there seems to be truth in both points of view: the bitcoin halving cycle and BTC’s previous months-long sideways movement both pointed to an incoming bullish period, while rate cuts and increased liquidity are always fuel for bitcoin. At the same time though, the resolving of the election in favor of Donald Trump, by a very clear margin, looks like the emphatic catalyst that has kicked off that anticipated bullishness in explosive fashion.
This move has seen BTC rise to new all-time highs with a price currently around the $90,000 mark, and trading is occurring amid positive speculation around Trump’s many pro-crypto pledges, including the possibility of a strategic bitcoin reserve, and a change of leadership at the SEC that should end the Commission’s hostility towards the crypto industry.
However, it’s not only BTC that has been making strong moves, with spot ETH ETFs and many smaller coins also reacting sharply to the political changes now taking place in America.
Ethereum ETFs Wake Up
ETH may be the second largest crypto by market cap, but it has underperformed this year in comparison to BTC, and also when placed side by side with some other Layer-1 blockchains, most notably Solana. Additionally, the spot ETH ETFs that launched in July had a conspicuously slow start when compared with the spot BTC ETFs that launched earlier in the year.
However, those Ethereum funds finally started to move after the election, and since Trump’s win was confirmed, the ETH ETFs have seen a cumulative $796.2 million in net inflows during the period from November 6th to November 13th. That said though, the price of ETH has yet to catch up with BTC in terms of yearly gains so far.
Daily net ETH ETF flows (chart from Delphi Digital)
DOGE and Other Memecoins Make Moves
Second only to the positivity around BTC–the central mover from which the rest of the crypto market derives its energy–the next greatest levels of market exuberance are currently to be found further out along the risk curve, in the world of memecoins.
From the outside, these tokens–much like NFTs a few years ago–are difficult to get a handle on. Memecoins have zero utility and yet they are currently delivering some enormous returns, and what’s more–as the lines blur between crypto, current affairs, and traditional finance,…
