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“Have a good time with your bitcoin and your crypto and everything else that you’re playing with!”

— Donald Trump

Crypto's big night

The first indication that the election would be decided quickly last night came at just 7:30 pm when Trump’s odds of winning Georgia surged on Polymarket. 

By 8 pm, amid reports of Trump doing better than expected in a few early reporting Florida counties, his Polymarket odds of winning the whole election rose to above 70%.

At 8:45 pm, while the New York Times “needle” was still giving Democrats hope by calling the race a “toss-up,” Trump’s Polymarket odds ticked up to a not-so-toss-up 75%. 

Watching the election coverage on TV during all this was no more helpful than the needle — the networks kept putting up graphics showing Harris with big leads in states like Kansas based on the 8% of votes that had randomly trickled in.

While ABC News was calling Pennsylvania “a battle” and Twitter pundits were telling us to wait for the Blue Wall before jumping to any conclusions, Polymarket’s swing-state odds were effectively calling the election for Trump.

Here is all you needed to know at about 9 pm:

By 10 pm, Polymarket had Trump at 90% to win the whole thing while the New York Times’ needle was prolonging Democrats’ agony by telling them the election was only “leaning” in that direction.

Polymarket was at least five percentage points ahead of the needle all night and even further in advance of the talking heads on TV.

There was also bitcoin, which tracked Trump’s Polymarket odds to an instructive 8% gain on the night.

The best TradFi equivalent, shares of the meme stock Trump Media and Technology Group (DJT), was conspicuously useless, seeing as the stock market was closed — and unlike previous election nights, I saw no mention of after-hours trading in S&P 500 futures and only a few mentions of movements in traditional currency markets. 

Really, all you had to do was watch Polymarket and bitcoin (everything else was either entertainment or torture, depending on your point of view) and seeing how ahead of the curve they were gave the night a surreal feel — it felt like crypto was at the center of the story.

It wasn’t, of course, that crypto remains a niche interest, but this was more than just proof of concept for prediction markets and non-sovereign money — it was a coming-out party for the entire crypto industry.

The plucky crypto industry was the single largest donor in this election cycle, splashing at least $160 million of cash on races big and small. 

Those donors can rightly claim a major scalp in Sherrod Brown and may well have tipped the scales in some of the dozens of House races they contributed to.

By one estimate, 171 pro-crypto candidates were elected last night, vs. just 77 anti-crypto candidates.

Only Senator Elizabeth Warren’s reelection in deep-blue Massachusetts showed the limits of crypto’s king-making power...

I jest (a little) — Trump’s margin of victory is such that crypto probably didn’t matter all that much in the end.

If nothing else, though, the industry went all-in on the winning side and is poised to reap the benefits: Crypto now has a four-year free pass to become whatever it wants to become.

Altcoins projects can build free of regulatory scrutiny; stablescoins’ KYC-lite business model has been de-facto recognized; tokenized bank deposits will probably soon be a thing; the Senate banking committee will be chaired by a bitcoiner (Senator Tim Scott); ICOs may make a comeback.

All this and more will be winds in the sails for crypto.

The question now is whether the industry uses its free pass and gusting tailwinds to build useful things — and build enough of them to transcend its new reputation as a partisan attack dog.

There will be plenty of coins to play with, as President Trump encouraged us to do, but it remains to be seen if anyone not already in the game will be interested in playing.

We do already have one new use case for crypto, though: Going to bed early on election night.

— Byron Gilliam

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MANTRA Chain’s mainnet has officially launched, marking a significant step towards their vision of becoming the preferred ledger of record for tokenized RWAs. While features of the Mainnet will continue to develop, users can already access the following notable activities:

• Bridge $OM from ERC-20 to Mainnet to gain access to future RWA drops

• Stake $OM to help secure the network and earn onchain staking rewards

• Earn KARMA by completing new missions on mainnet

While 2024 has been a landmark year for MANTRA, including strategic collaborations with UAE real estate giant MAG and Zand Bank, the launch of the Mainnet will open the door for significant movement in the real-world asset space.

1. Revisiting Trump’s crypto promises after his election win

2. FOMC gathers as country and markets digest election results

3. Bitcoin carves out fresh all-time high as crypto stocks take off

4. Polymarket performs smoothly on Election Day, processes $240M in trading volumes

5. Crypto candidates fared well on election night

L1 Valuations and the Rise of Apps

Chris Burniske and Ryan Watkins join Mike Ippolito to explore the evolving relationship between applications and infrastructure in crypto's value accrual balance. They dissect the current state of infrastructure premiums, examine how ETFs are reshaping market dynamics, and discuss the emerging opportunities in DeFi and AI integration.

Listen to Expansion on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.