After the much televised 2016 dustup, America is set to go to the polls again today. This time not to vote for a new president but rather to vote in local leaders in the US Senate, House of Representatives and governorships. This happens every two years and is known as Mid-term elections, which is a precursor to the general election scheduled for 2020. With all this in mind, the biggest question in a crypto enthusiast’s mind is how this will affect the crypto markets. Given that the tight contest between the two main adversaries, democrats and republicans will draw a lot of interest; it is expected that crypto traders holding positions in the market will take time off to go participate in the electoral process.
Traders taking time off to go and exercise their democratic right to vote will definitely have an effect on market trade volumes, therefore, affecting crypto prices. Most traders will probably close their positions on prominent exchanges such as Bitmex, Binance, and Bitfinex etc. When that many trade positions get taken out, the market trade volume significantly goes down. This will see the currently prevailing crypto bears continue just like the Bitmex CEO predicted a while back that the Bear markets would persist for the next 12 to 18 months due to low trade volumes. In his statement a while back, the Bitmex CEO stated; I’m just basing it (Prediction) off my previous experience. I started in Bitcoin in 2013 when the price went from $250 to $1,300 and then 2014 to 2015 was sort of the nuclear bear market. Prices crashed volume crashed — very, very difficult to make money”.
Crypto-currencies will be affected in the post-election period by who gets into office. People voted in might either be pro or anti-crypto-currencies. These leaders will be instrumental in deciding the regulatory fate of cryptocurrencies. Countries such as China have been very tough on cryptocurrencies with legislators giving the crypto community over there a tough time. Times have changed over there though, with the government slowly softening its stance on crypto. India has also been another country where the crypto community has taken a hit with the country’s reserve bank as well as legislators having a tough stance on crypto-currencies. It, therefore, remains to be seen who the American electorate votes in and what effect they will have on the crypto-currencies.
