Bitcoin’s election market moment has arrived

Predictions that the US election will fuel bitcoin’s price are set to be tested

article-image

Fuzail Khan MO/Shutterstock and Adobe modified by Blockworks

share


This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


Harry Potter ran headfirst into a brick wall at Platform 9¾ to transcend into the Wizarding World.

We’re about to do something similar with bitcoin.

This is it. After the next few days, there are no more immediate catalysts and prophecies to fulfill.

  1. The Bitcoin halving: The network cut issuance in half almost exactly 200 days ago. Cycle-maxis predicted it would inevitably lead to a supply shock one year later, as is tradition.
  2. US election: Always occurs six-to-eight months after the halving — and the past two elections have preceded a full bitcoin send to all-time highs.
This chart plots bitcoin rallies around the election against each other, as if they all started at once. The dotted line is Election Day (today), and the orange circles are halvings.

Bitcoin rallied from $720 to nearly $20,000 in the 400 or so days after Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. That’s over 27x in a little over a year.

BTC then went 4.2x — from $16,300 to $69,000— in the year following Biden’s win in 2020.

Brainiacs would, however, quickly point out that only two or three halving-election cycles tells us nothing statistically significant about anything. 

Bitcoin’s massive rallies over the years are then just price discovery. And perhaps, elections and halvings are less significant than the global liquidity cycle, for instance (which, coincidentally, is headed for an uptrend!)

While the global liquidity prophecy plays out over the longer-term, Trump’s odds on Polymarket have been tipped as an immediate driver of bitcoin’s price.

A god candle is inevitable if Trump wins, the thinking goes

The chart above maps the price of bitcoin (the area in green) to Trump’s odds on Polymarket, in orange. The shaded purple areas indicate when Trump’s odds and BTC/USD were correlated.

They only align about half the time, which probably says they’re not really correlated at all. Although, the two have closely tracked each other since early October.

Still, we’re in uncharted territory. Bitcoin hit all-time high before the halving this time around, an apparent anomaly in the cycle prophecy — just like The Boy Who Lived.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template.png

Research

The march toward an interoperable and onchain-by-default internet depends on reliable messaging and value transfer across heterogeneous domains. Crosschain protocols now process >$1.3T in combined annual transfer volume and secure tens of millions of user interactions, yet no single design dominates.

article-image

The goal, per Santiago Santos, is to make crypto a relatable piece of tech for people who may not even understand it

article-image

Stripe stablecoin unit aims to operate under a federal charter enabling regulated stablecoin issuance and custody services

by Blockworks /
article-image

Will TradFi make crypto better or create more problems than it solves?

article-image

Subtle decisions by risk curators saved Aave from significant turmoil

article-image

The new Rootstock Institutional unit aims to connect professional investors to Bitcoin-native yield and liquidity strategies anchored in BTC’s security layer

by Blockworks /
article-image

DOJ files record civil forfeiture against more than 127,000 BTC linked to scam activity

by Blockworks /