First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Rises Above $62.5K Following Trump Shooting

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Bitcoin rose to over $62,500 following the weekend attack on Donald Trump, which seems to have also boosted the former president's chances of winning a second term in November. Having cemented himself as the pro-crypto candidate compared with President Joe Biden, Trump's election prospects have become a metric for the cryptocurrency market. BTC has rallied over 7% since the failed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. At the time of writing, it is priced at $62,476, an increase of 3.95% in the last 24 hours. The broader digital asset market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), has risen by 3.32%.

The probability of Donald Trump retaking the White House jumped to an all-time high on Saturday after the shooting at the Pennsylvania rally, according to traders on Polymarket. "Yes" shares in Polymarket's contract on whether Trump will win the presidency climbed 10 cents after the incident to 70 cents, meaning the market now sees a 70% chance he will prevail in November's election. Each share pays out $1 if the prediction comes true, and zero if not. Meme tokens named after Trump also surged after the shooting. MAGA, for example, rose 34% on a 24-hour basis to $8.38, according to CoinGecko data, and the satirical TREMP added 67% to $0.6471. BODEN, a joke asset named after Biden, slipped about 15% over 24 hours to $0.0333115.

Alexey Pertsev, the co-founder and developer behind Tornado Cash, was denied bail by a Dutch court on Friday. Pertsev's lawyers were seeking bail to allow the Russian to prepare for his appeals process, but the court said "that continuing his detention does not obstruct his possibility to prepare his defense,” Keith Cheng, Pertsev's lawyer said according to the report. Pertsev was found guilty of money laundering by a Dutch judge at the s-Hertogenbosch court in May and handed 64 months prison time by the court. The verdict sent shock waves within the community leaving several outraged. The case has been described as the most pivotal legal case in crypto.

- Omkar Godbole