Bitcoin (BTC) rose through $37,000 early Monday as Argentina’s presidential election was won by Javier Milei, a pro-bitcoin candidate. The broader crypto market added almost 2% in the past 24 hours.
Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist, has been supportive of bitcoin, calling it “the return of money to its original creator, the private sector.” He has not, however, proposed making the world’s largest cryptocurrency legal tender in the country.
The artificial intelligence (AI) token sector also gained, adding over 8% amid key, but unrelated, developments in rising AI upstarts. Bittensor’s TAO rose 4.2%, adding to a 77% rally over the past week. Ocean Protocol’s OCEAN, Fetch AI’s FET and SingularityNet’s AGIX zoomed as much as 16% in the past 24 hours, outperforming bitcoin and other majors.
Near Protocol’s NEAR jumped 20% and staking platform Lido’s LDO added 11%.
A potentially busy week is coming up for crypto, with several events and announcements that could drive market movements, some traders said.
“Tomorrow the U.S. Federal Reserve releases its latest meeting notes, which have a tendency to move markets,” eToro markets analyst Simon Peters said in a note to CoinDesk. “These minutes give deeper insight into central bank thinking. With inflation slowing, investors are looking for more confirmation that we may be at peak rates.”
“Also on Tuesday, Nvidia is reporting its latest results. The firm has become a poster child for the AI revolution as the ‘picks and shovels’ play for investors. Cryptoassets are likely to be responsive to the firm’s announcements,” Peters said.
Peters also warned of low liquidity toward the end of the week as U.S. financial markets close Thursday for Thanksgiving and Black Friday kicks off the holiday shopping season. Thin trading volumes can create volatility in markets.
FxPro analyst Alex Kuptsikevich said that while traders expect the Federal Reserve to announce rate cuts in the coming months, such a move could occur only if financial markets were to first take a deep hit.
“The Fed typically starts a cycle of rate cuts only after a significant market correction starts, on the back of damaged risk appetite,” Kuptsikevich wrote in a note on Monday. “A cut in the first half of 2024 can only be triggered by severe turbulence in debt and equity market.”
A drop in broader markets could, however, mean bitcoin “returns below $30,000 before triggering another bull cycle,” Kuptsikevich said.
