As the US Presidential poll count began earlier today, bitcoin price has made steady increasing gains as investors flocked toward the cryptocurrency in a day that saw the most improbable victory in modern political history.
As polling in the eastern states in the US came to a close, bitcoin price stood at $706.36 at 02:00 UTC on the Bitstamp Price Index (BPI). The overwhelming narrative that heavily favored victory for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in recent months quickly began to fall apart as polling numbers came in, with Florida and Ohio, two key swing states, won by Trump to gain an early lead.
Within two hours, bitcoin had jumped over $20 to scale $729.62.
At the time of publishing, bitcoin price is trading at $740.
Globally, markets are reacting adversely to the unlikely presidential victory which sees a political outsider and real-estate mogul elected as the leader of the most influential country in the world. The Nikkei stock market in Japan saw a 1000-point plunge . South Korea will hold a National Security Council meeting to discuss the potential impact of Trump’s victory.
The Mexican peso plunged 10% against the dollar, reacting to the victory of a candidate who has repeatedly stated that he would build a wall that is estimated to cost tens of billions of dollars with Mexico footing the bill. US stock futures took a sharp negative turn.
Speaking to the Guardian , Jeremy Cook, the chief economist at World First, a money brokers firm compared the Trump victory to that of the unexpected Brexit vote:
The great unknown is the economic policy, based around a trade war with Mexico, its third largest trading partner, and China, its biggest trading partner. Brexit was about UK instability. Trump is about global instability.
According to CNBC S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures all fell over 5%. While Bitcoin and gold made gains, the Euro fell 2% while the Japanese yen dropped 3%, a Forbes report revealed.
Images from Shutterstock. Chart from BitcoinWisdom.