Coindesk

Political bettors on Polymarket and other platforms are paying attention to Canada as the nation heads to the polls.As the country's 45th election comes to a close, a contract asking bettors to predict who will be Canada's next Prime Minister gives the Liberal Party's Mark Carney a 78% chance, and the Conservatives' Pierre Poilievre a 22% shot.Political bettors are slightly more skeptical of Carney's chances of winning than the polls, but both are pointing in the same direction. A poll aggregator from public broadcaster CBC puts Carney's chances at 89%.Myriad Markets, another prediction market, is giving Carney similar odds to Polymarket.FanDuel, a licensed betting platform open only to residents of Ontario, Canada, initially gave the Conservatives a sharp, contrarian lead...

Strategic allocation away from U.S. assets by investors could see bitcoin hit a new all-time high in the second quarter of the year, Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick said in a report Monday.Kendrick sees the world's largest cryptocurrency as reaching $120,000 this quarter as he reiterated his previous target of $200,000 by the end of 2025. Bitcoin was trading around $95,300 at publication time.Kendrick noted that the U.S. Treasury term premium, which is closely correlated to the bitcoin price, is at a 12-year high. Accumulation by whales has also been strong. In addition, bitcoin time-of-day analysis suggests that American investors may be looking for non-U.S. assets, he said.Lastly, exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows in the last week suggest "safe-haven reallocation from gold...

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)Bitcoin (BTC) was little changed Monday, adding less than 1% amid renewed trade tensions and concerns of geopolitical instability that spread into the Indian subcontinent, where India and Pakistan are exchanging small-arms fire.The cryptocurrency rose 0.75% in the past 24 hours, turning positive for the year and decoupling from traditional risk assets as investors questioned the durability of the U.S.’s role as the global financial anchor. The broader market, measured through the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index, rose 2.2%.Stock-index futures in the U.S. are pointing to a slight drop and gold fell over 1% with investors likely taking profit from the precious metal’s 25% year-to-date rally. Equities endured a sell-off after China...

Crypto lender Nexo said it is reentering the U.S., marking a comeback two years after regulatory friction forced its exit."America is back and so is Nexo," Co-founder Antoni Trenchev said at a press event Sunday in Bulgaria with Donald Trump Jr., crediting what he described as a more favorable environment for innovation under the Trump presidency."Thanks to the vision and leadership of President Donald J. Trump, his administration, and his family, the United States is once again a place where innovation is championed, not stifled. A place where pioneers are celebrated," Trenchev said, according to a press release.Now managing $11 billion in assets, Nexo said it will offer its full suite of services to U.S. retail and institutional clients, including...

Bitcoin (BTC) returned to positive territory for the year for the first time in almost two months, approaching $95,000 and erasing a drop of as much as 18%.Its current performance, up less 1.5% since Dec. 31, places it between gold, which has gained 24% and the Nasdaq 100, which is down over 7%. As a result, the narrative positioning bitcoin as either a leveraged tech stock or digital gold is leaning slightly toward the digital gold narrative. But only just.Analyzing bitcoin’s correlation coefficients over a 30-day moving average, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization now shows a strong correlation of 0.70 with gold and a weaker 0.53 correlation with the Nasdaq 100. This suggests bitcoin is aligning more closely with...