Bitcoin briefly touches $14k on the US election day

Bitcoin briefly touches $14k on the US election day

By Hassan Maishera - min read
Image of Bitcoin with an upward arrow. Source: Shutterstock

The United States presidential elections dominate the global news, and the crypto space isn’t left out. Bitcoin briefly touched the $14,000 mark yesterday as poll workers started counting the ballots

Bitcoin (BTC) surged by more than 2% yesterday to reach the $14,000 mark as results of the US presidential elections were announced in several states. However, at the time of writing, BTC had cooled down and is now trading around the $13,800 region on most exchanges.

Yesterday was election day in the United States as citizens voted for the next leader of the world’s largest economy. The world is focused on the US presidential elections, and the cryptocurrency space is eagerly anticipating the winner.

According to some crypto analysts, the race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden could see Bitcoin become a big winner. It has begun to manifest as Bitcoin reached the $14k mark in two hours after the polls were closed in several states, and the numbers started rolling out.

This is the second time Bitcoin is reaching $14k in the past week, making it the best performance among all the cryptocurrencies since January 2018. Bitcoin, which came into existence in 2009, has been around for two US presidential elections. Bitcoin was trading at $12 during the 2012 elections but experienced massive gains to reach $700 per coin during the 2016 elections. Since then, Bitcoin has grown by 1,900% as it trades around the $14k mark in the ongoing elections.

At the time of this report, Joe Biden leads after capturing 131 electoral votes compared to 98 by Donald Trump. A candidate is required to have 270 electoral votes to be declared the winner of the presidential race.

Bitcoin’s price surge not only political

The rise in Bitcoin’s price in recent weeks isn’t solely tied to the ongoing presidential elections. Several factors, such as the increasing interest of institutional investors in the crypto market, are essential to Bitcoin’s latest rally.

PayPal’s entry into the market has helped Bitcoin record gains as the payment processing company plans to provide cryptocurrency services to its 26 million customers worldwide. Institutions such as MicroStrategy and Square investing vast chunks of their holdings in Bitcoin have also done wonders for the cryptocurrency’s price.

Analysts predict volatility in the crypto and stock markets as ballots are counted across the United States over the coming hours. Hence, we should expect further changes in the price of Bitcoin in the coming hours.