Bitcoin Nears $70K on Back of Trump's Speech, Bitcoin Cash and Base Memecoins Lead Crypto Market Gains

Bitcoin neared the $70,000 mark for the first time since early June in Asian afternoon hours, days after Republican candidate Donald Trump revealed plans to make the asset a national strategic asset if brought to power in November.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and BRETT, a relatively new memecoin on the Base blockchain led gains in the crypto market on Monday. Meanwhile, Solana's SOL jumped 6%, leading gains among major tokens, as BNB Chain's BNB, ether (ETH) and XRP rose between 2-5%.

BCH is up over 10% as Mt. Gox finishes distributing tokens to its creditors, beating the CoinDesk 20, a measure of the largest and most liquid digital assets, which is up 3.6%.

CoinDesk Indices data shows that bitcoin (BTC) is up 3%, trading above $69,500, while Ether (ETH) is up 4%, trading above $3300.

This steady rise in price for BTC caused the liquidation of a $13.8 million short bet, while $11.4 million ETH short were wiped out, according to CoinGlass data.

In a highly anticipated speech on Saturday, Trump said that if elected in November, he would fire current SEC Chair Gensler, build a strategic bitcoin reserve, and prevent the U.S. from selling its bitcoin holdings. He believes that the asset could compete with gold one day and be "the steel industry of 100 years ago."

Initially, some analysts believed that BCH would be the loser in the Mt. Gox trade, as the bankruptcy redemptions would result in a disproportionately larger percentage of BCH coming into the market compared to Bitcoin, but that fear seems to have been unfounded.

The market seems to be reacting favorably to BRETT, a 'mascot' memecoin on the already meme-heavy Base blockchain. BRETT is the roommate to Matt Furie's Pepe the Frog, a comical slacker character from Boy's Club.

BRETT is up 11% in the last 24 hours, while POPCAT, a cat-themed memecoin is up 7%.

Meanwhile, Trump-themed tokens continue in the red, despite a recent address by former-President at the BTC 2024 conference in Nashville.

The MAGA (TRUMP) token is down 6% on-day, according to CoinGecko data, and down 18% in the last week. TREMP is trading flat, down 0.3% in the last 24 hours, while down almost 10% over the last week.