Knife-edge Biden-Trump Showdown Has Crypto Backers on Both Sides

Bitcoin Politics USA

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Tim Alper

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Tim Alper

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Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked...

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June 26, 2023 06:54 EDT

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As American voters face a nervous wait to see if Democratic candidate Joe Biden can edge out President Donald Trump in the recent United States election, it appears that some big crypto community players may be watching the vote counts with more trepidation than others – with Bakkt‘s parent and FTX standing on the opposite sides of the political fence.

Data compiled by Opensecrets, a research group that claims its mission is to “track money in United States politics,” reveals that Sam Bankman-Fried, the head of crypto derivatives exchange FTX, stumped up USD 5.2m to fund Biden’s campaign for the presidency, despite being a “relative newcomer to political spending,” in the words of the Wall Street Journal.

FTX is headquartered in Hong Kong, but some Redditors opined that FTX’s support for Biden could result in a lucrative reward further down the line, with one quipping,

“I guess that’s one way to secure a bitcoin ETF…”

But it appears that the crypto world’s political allegiances are divided. One of the biggest backers of President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, also per Opensecrets data, was Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the operator of the New York Stock Exchange and Bakkt, a bitcoin (BTC) derivatives platform.

ICE stumped up a cool USD 1m to help fund the incumbent president’s campaign.

Self-styled crypto candidate Brock Pierce and the bitcoin-keen rapper Kanye West were also standing for election, but appear to have garnered but a tiny fraction of the vote thus far.

But no matter who is eventually declared the winner of the presidential vote, it appears that the crypto community will at least have a voice in the Senate, with Republican candidate and bitcoin enthusiast Cynthia Lummis winning a seat yesterday.

For now (09:38 UTC), Biden secured 264 electoral votes out of necessary 270, while Trump has 214, with five states uncalled, according to Bloomberg data. While Reuters and some other sources claim that Biden has 243 votes, Trump – 214.

According to predictions markets on FTX, there is a 15% chance that Trump will win the race, compared with 86% in the case of Biden.

At pixel time, BTC trades at USD 14,491 and is up by 6% in a day and 10% in a week.