- Polymarket’s election odds have shifted significantly in the past few days: Harris was up by 10 points less than a week ago, but now trails Trump by 4 points.
- The cause of the shift isn’t clear, but it could be down to the Democrats’ crypto snub in their official policy platform and Harris’ reported embrace of Biden’s proposed corporate tax hike.
- Bankless co-founder, Ryan Adams, now says that based on research from Coinbase, it looks like crypto could well decide the outcome of the election.
If the decentralised prediction market, Polymarket, can be trusted—it looks like the race for the US presidency has tightened significantly in the past few days. Less than a week ago, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris had a commanding 10-point lead over Donald Trump on Polymarket, but that situation has flipped and Trump now leads by 4%.
While Polymarket is used mainly by crypto investors, not necessarily your average voter, it’s becoming an increasingly important indicator as crypto becomes more politically relevant. According to Ryan Adams, co-founder of Bankless, crypto could be an election-deciding issue as more voters, especially younger voters, say crypto policy will be a crucial factor in determining their choice.
Related: Donald Trump Holds More Than 1 Million USD in Crypto As Tide Turns on Polymarket
Polymarket Moves, But What Does It Mean?
The cause of the sudden shift in Polymarket’s election odds isn’t clear, but it may be related to Monday’s release of the Democrats’ official policy platform, which ignored crypto entirely.
The Democrats’ platform failed to make a single mention of crypto or digital assets. In contrast, the Republican platform released earlier this year made several mentions of crypto, outlining a number of pro-crypto policy initiatives including ending the Democrats’ “unlawful and unAmerican Crypto crackdown” and promising to defend Americans’ right to mine Bitcoin.
Related: Harris Unveils Agenda with No Crypto Changes; Gensler Rumoured for Promotion
However, it’s probably best not to read too much into the Democrats’ crypto snub. As Noelle Acheson, the author of the Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter pointed out this week, the party’s platform was completed while Biden was still the candidate and hasn’t been updated since. Case in point, it still makes reference to a second Biden term:
It was written a while ago, when Biden was still the candidate, and has not been changed since then, it even refers to a Biden 2nd term – if a simple Find/Replace was too much to get through multiple committees, no way was new language going to get inserted!
Noelle Acheson, Author of Crypto Is Macro NowAnother possible contributor to Polymarket’s shift is a negative reaction to Harris’ reported support for Biden’s proposed corporate tax hike. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that members of Kamala Harris’ campaign team have confirmed the new candidate endorses Biden’s proposed hike in corporate tax rate from the current 21% to 28%.
Perhaps the combination of a crypto snub plus boosting the corporate tax rate was enough to cause the significant swing we’ve seen on Polymarket.
Crypto An Election Deciding Issue, Says Bankless Co-founder
Posting on X / Twitter yesterday, Bankless co-founder Ryan Adams declared that “Pro-crypto wins elections”. This bold statement was based on research from Coinbase and Morning Consult, showing that:
- 25% of eligible voters under 35 own crypto; and
- 51% of those voters say they’ll vote for the crypto-friendly candidate.
Related: Survey Shows Shift in Investor Sentiment, Unveils Gen Z Favours Crypto Over Stocks
At the moment there’s not much doubt that Trump is making the much more crypto-friendly noises of the two candidates. And who knows, that might just be enough to see him re-elected in November.
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