Markets
Trump’s chances of victory hit record high on Polymarket after shooting
The odds of former US President Donald Trump retaking the White House hit a record high on Saturday after he was injured in a shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania, according to traders at Polymarket.
A Secret Service spokesman said the Republican presidential candidate was “safe” following the shooting, according to The New York TimesA suspected gunman was killed and a bystander also died, the newspaper said.
Photos and videos of a defiant Trump, his face bloodied and his fist raised in the air, circulated on social media, after two weeks in which the national conversation had focused on the fragility And blunders of his opponent, incumbent President Joe Biden.
“Yes” share The Polymarket contract The stock price on Trump winning the presidential election jumped 10 cents after the incident to 70 cents, meaning the market now values a 70% chance that he will win in November. Each stock yields $1 if the prediction comes true, and $0 if it doesn’t. The bets are programmed into a smart contract on the Polygon blockchain and settled in USDC, a stablecoin or cryptocurrency that trades 1:1 against dollars.
“PoliFi“Meme tokens bearing the Trump name also surged after the shooting. MAGA, for example, rose 34% on a 24-hour basis to $8.38, according to Data from CoinGeckoand the satirical TREMP had climbed 67% to $0.6471.
BODENa joke asset named after Biden, fell about 15% over 24 hours to $0.0333115. These meme coins have become a sort of “de facto betting market on the election,” as one supporter put it described them this year, although unlike prediction markets, PoliFi tokens pay nothing to holders if the associated candidate wins.
As note by writer Noah Kumin in the Mars Review of Books, the shooting has also inspired (if that’s the right word) a series of new meme spots, many of them in poor taste, on the Solana. token creation site Pump.fun“The Resurrection of Trump” (ticker: ROT) and “Hero Trump” (HERO) are two relatively harmless examples.
The CoinDesk 20 Index, a proxy for the overall cryptocurrency market, is up 3.31% over 24 hours. Bitcoin, the oldest and largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is up 3.26% to $59,735.17.
Polymarket, founded four years ago by Shayne Coplan, has seen huge trading volumes in 2024 amid excitement over political betting ahead of the US election. The US presidential winner’s contract totalled $252 million in bets placed, a record for the company and for all crypto based prediction marketsif not all prediction markets.
PredictIt, a more traditional betting site where bets are settled in fiat currency, showed a similar trendTrump’s shares rose from 59 cents before the shooting to 66 cents before settling at 65 cents.
Prediction markets are often considered a more reliable and superior indicator of sentiment forecasting method than polls or experts, because people making predictions are putting money on the line and therefore have an incentive to do thorough research and express their opinions. honest reviews.
UPDATE (July 14, 2024, 01:55 UTC): Adds BODEN token price, links, and background.
UPDATE (July 14, 2024, 02:36 UTC): Adds details about newly minted meme coins.