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Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Bitcoin reached a fresh all-time high near $81,000 and futures premiums soared, in a clear sign that investors believe the record-run in the world’s largest cryptocurrency is poised for even more gains on the back of U.S. elections that saw a swell of pro-crypto candidates win office.
Open interest in bitcoin’s price surpassing $90,000 rose to more than $2.8 billion on the popular Deribit derivatives exchange, one of a few crypto native platforms that offers futures trading. Deribit encompasses most of the offshore options market.
“The options market’s bias is heavily toward continued momentum. Call options trade at a premium to puts, and open interest in out-of-the-money calls has grown,” Vetle Lunde, head of research at K33 Research, told CNBC.
A call option gives the buyer the right to buy shares of an underlying asset at a certain price for a specified period of time. Buying a call option is a bet the asset price will move higher. Buying a put option is a bet the asset price will fall.
The CME derivates exchange offers bitcoin futures contracts and is a popular way for institutions in the U.S. to make bets on the future price of bitcoin. Velde told CNBC that on Friday CME premiums for ether and bitcoin averaged 14.5% and 14%, respectively. Ahead of the election, Velde says these premiums sat at 7%, and had spent a majority of the past half year hovering slightly below 10%.
“The recent surge is a meaningful deviation higher emphasizing the bullish flows of late,” he added, noting that yields more or less stabilized well into the double digits after the election became clear.
“Alongside the growth in leverage, we saw the first meaningful example of growing yields in offshore derivatives, indicative of the move being led by determined risk-takers positioning for further upside,” said Velde.
The early innings of bitcoin’s push higher coincided with substantial growth in open interest in perpetual swaps, or contracts that allow buyers to speculate on where they think prices are headed without a set expiration date.
But liquidity in crypto markets on weekends is typically poorer than during weekdays, as neither CME futures nor ETFs are open to trade, so moves thus tend to overreact and substantially retrace once these markets open again, according to Velde.
President-elect Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet.” His multiple pledges to the crypto community included launching a national crypto stockpile with the more than $16 billion in bitcoin the U.S. government has amassed through asset seizures, as well as slashing interest rates. The easing of monetary policy typically dovetails with a surge in crypto prices since it makes it cheaper to borrow money.
The Federal Reserve, which guides the country’s monetary policy, sets the benchmark rate. It also, by design, operates independently from the White House. On Thursday, the Fed approved its second consecutive interest rate cut.
On the back of election results and the Fed’s unanimous vote to again slash the benchmark rate, the crypto market broadly surged into the weekend. Ether eclipsed bitcoin’s rise, up 30% in the last seven days, and solana’s market cap topped $100 billion on Sunday.
The total market cap of all spot bitcoin ETFs is now above $80 billion, and in the last three trading days alone, the spot funds collectively added $2.3 billion.
Within fintech, companies tied to crypto were some of the top performers, after candidates funded by the crypto industry won races up and down the ballot.
Coinbase shares jumped 48% for the week, their strongest performance since January 2023. Coinbase was one of the top corporate donors in the election cycle, giving more than $75 million to Fairshake and its affiliate PACs, including a fresh pledge of $25 million to support the pro-crypto super PAC in the 2026 midterms.
Trump has vowed to oust SEC Chair Gary Gensler, which potentially bodes well for companies like Coinbase fighting the regulator in court over alleged securities offenses.
“Tuesday night was certainly a big night for crypto and the crypto voter,” Coinbase’s chief legal officer Paul Grewal said in an interview. “We’re going to have the most pro-crypto Congress ever, and Coinbase has played some part in all of that.”
Robinhood, which allows users to buy and sell a number of digital currencies, rose 27% for the week. The online brokerage received a Wells Notice from the SEC in May, a move that often precedes formal charges.
Robinhood’s general manager for its crypto unit told CNBC that the goal at Robinhood is to be able to work within the administration.
“If you think about crypto, it’s a very fast-moving pace. It’s complicated, it was made by engineers, for engineers,” said Johann Kerbrat, the Vice President and General Manager of Robinhood Crypto. “We want to help policymakers to understand it and help them drive the right protections for the customers.”
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