Trump win powers Polymarket to new heights in prediction market
Platform uses influencer marketing to boost reach in US, despite betting prohibition by regulators
Republican Donald Trump has won the 2024 presidential election, securing a historic second term in a non-consecutive presidency. His victory could mean significant waves for the crypto movement.
The crypto community has shown enthusiastic support for Trump’s win. Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, shared on X that “we have a Bitcoin president,” suggesting Trump’s strong pro-crypto stance.
We have a #Bitcoin President. pic.twitter.com/HUACTe1XPI
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor)
Ahead of the elections, Trump established himself to be the pro-crypto candidate. In July, he headlined this year's largest Bitcoin conference, expressing that the government would never release its Bitcoin holdings if he were to return to the White House, as reported by CNBC News.
Trump also vowed to fire Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission who has seemingly been going against all things crypto-related.
That said, the community was very proactive when it came to the US elections. Others saw it as an opportunity to earn, as several punters went to the prediction platform Polymarket to bet on the presidential candidate that they believe will win.
Blockchain-based Polymarket is a decentralized prediction platform that allows punters to bet on outcomes of future events—be it politics-related or sports-related, among other categories. The platform lets users purchase and sell shares—which are priced between 0.000 and 1.00 USDC—that represent the outcomes of impending events.
In fact, Polymarket's popularity surged during the election season. France, however, has raised concerns about the platform. According to The Big Whale, a source close to France's National Gaming Authority (ANJ) shared that “even if Polymarket uses cryptocurrencies in its operations, it remains a betting activity and this is not legal in France.”
Despite this scrutiny, Polymarket soared to the top of the Apple Store charts on election night. According to the New York Post, Polymarket used influencer marketing to boost its reach in the US, even though federal regulators prohibit Americans from betting on the platform. Leading up to election day, users had placed bets totaling $1.5 billion on Trump and $1.03 billion on Vice President Kamala Harris, reflecting both high engagement and positive sentiment toward Trump.
Following Trump’s win, Polymarket celebrated, posting on X: “We are proud to have delivered high quality, transparent data to everyone across the globe and ahead of everyone else. We are just at the beginning of building a generational platform that demystifies the events that matter most to people around the world.” They congratulated Trump and Vice President-elect Vance on their victory.
Last night, Polymarket proved the wisdom of markets over the polls, the media, and the pundits.
— Polymarket (@Polymarket) November 6, 2024
Polymarket consistently and accurately forecasted outcomes well ahead of all three, demonstrating the power of high volume, deeply liquid prediction markets like those pioneered by…
The growing enthusiasm towards Donald Trump’s candidacy was also seen in another interesting manner: memecoin growth.
At the time of writing, the market capitalization of memecoins is an impressive $67.7 billion. Market cap is a crucial metric that sheds light on a crypto's popularity and dominance, making it important to take into account.
Furthermore, in the landscape of political memecoins, Trump-inspired memecoins have been dominating in market cap—with MAGA (TRUMP), MAGA (MAGA), Super Trump Coin (STRUMP), and MAGA AGAIN (MAGAA) bagging 2nd to 5th places on CoinMarketCap's list at the time of writing.
Moreover, ahead of Election day, Trump-inspired memecoins were observed to go up, while those themed after Kamala Harris went down.
Decrypt reported on November 4 that the MAGA (TRUMP) memecoin saw an impressive 25.4% rise in market cap—reaching $167 million—over a 24-hour period. However, at the time of writing, its market cap sits at $104.93 million—showcasing the incredible volatility of memecoins.
Going further, other dominant memecoins like Dogecoin, Pepe, Dogwifhat, and Bonk saw remarkable growth in light of Donald Trump's victory.
At the time of writing, Dogecoin has gone up by 16.77% in the last 24 hours, while Pepe, Dogwifhat, and Bonk have seen notable increases of 14.35%, 14.41%, and 17.32%, respectively.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Bitcoin—which Donald Trump has been vocally backing and endorsing—also saw incredible growth following elections, seeing an all-time-high of more than $75,000.
Conveying further enthusiasm, prominent figures like Elon Musk—who has been supporting Trump's candidacy—also took to X to share his election joy.
🇺🇸🇺🇸The future is gonna be so 🔥 🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/x56cqb6oT5
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2024
Justin Sun, the founder of TRON Network, also expressed that “we hope for crypto-friendly policies that promote industry growth. These changes can make America even greater. Looking forward to success in the crypto space under this leadership!”
Congratulations to President Trump on becoming the new U.S. President! We hope for crypto-friendly policies that promote industry growth. These changes can make America even greater. Looking forward to success in the crypto space under this leadership!
— H.E. Justin Sun🌞(hiring) (@justinsuntron) November 6, 2024
