Bitcoin approached the $70,000 mark for the first time since early June in the afternoon Asian time zone, days after Republican candidate Donald Trump revealed plans to make Bitcoin a national strategic asset if he takes office in November.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and BRETT, a relatively new meme coin on the BASE blockchain, led the crypto market rally on Monday, while Solana’s SOL, up 6%, led the gains among major tokens, while BNB Chain’s BNB, Ether (ETH) and XRP rose between 2-5%.
As Mt. Gox completed its token distribution to creditors, BCH rose by more than 10%, outperforming a 3.6% gain in the CoinDesk 20, an index of the largest and most liquid digital assets.
According to data from CoinGlass, the steady rise in BTC prices has led to the liquidation of $13.8 million in short interest and the disappearance of $11.4 million in ETH short interest.
In a highly anticipated speech on Saturday, Trump said that if elected in November, he would fire current SEC Chairman Gensler, build a strategic bitcoin reserve and block the sale of U.S. holdings of bitcoin. He believes bitcoin could one day compete with gold and become “the steel industry of 100 years ago.”
Initially, some analysts believed that BCH would lose out in the Mt. Gox trade because bankruptcy redemptions would bring a disproportionately large percentage of BCH into the market compared to Bitcoin, but those fears appeared to be unfounded.
The market appears to be responding favorably to BRETT, a “mascot” meme coin on the already meme-rich Base blockchain, which is based on the comically slacker character from The Boys Club, Matt Furie’s roommate to Pepe the Frog.
BRETT is up 11% in the past 24 hours, while cat-themed meme coin POPCAT is up 7%.
Meanwhile, Trump-themed tokens continue to fall despite former President Trump’s recent speech at the BTC 2024 conference in Nashville.
