At one point, bettors gave over a 60% chance that former President Donald Trump would mention digital assets during his interview with Elon Musk. However, despite these expectations, neither Bitcoin nor crypto were discussed during the two-hour-long event, which drew over 1 million listeners on X.
The interview, which took place on Monday evening, covered a broad range of topics, including illegal immigration, the economy, artificial intelligence, and global warming. However, cryptocurrency was noticeably absent from the conversation. The event, which attracted significant attention, was delayed for over 45 minutes due to what Musk described as a “massive [distributed denial of service] attack on X.” Musk suggested that this attack was indicative of strong opposition to Trump’s views. However, a report from The Verge questioned Musk’s claim, citing a source who believed there was a 99% chance Musk was not being truthful. Meanwhile, cybersecurity watchdog Netblocks reported international outages on X Spaces but did not confirm if a DDOS attack was responsible.
On Polymarket, a prediction market, bettors had given a 65% chance that crypto would be mentioned during the interview, with over $600,000 staked on the topic. Another market was created specifically for the mention of “Bitcoin,” which peaked at 69%, with approximately $330,000 at stake. Each share in these bets paid out $1 in USDC—a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar—if the prediction was correct, and nothing if it wasn’t. Polymarket did not create markets for mentions of other digital assets like ether, solana, or dogecoin.
Bettors also wagered over $250,000 on Trump mentioning “Tesla,” which peaked at 79%. However, Trump avoided the specific term, instead referring to the electric vehicle brand as “your cars” while addressing Musk. Other words that attracted bets included “MAGA,” “illegal immigrant,” and “tampon,” all of which Trump mentioned during the X Space.
One user, going by ‘bama1234,’ walked away with just over $1 million after correctly betting on most of the words Trump did or did not say during the interview. Their largest win, $336,918, came from betting that Trump would not mention “crypto.” However, they did lose out by incorrectly betting on Trump mentioning “MAGA,” which he did early in the interview, and “Trans,” which Trump did not say.
While crypto has increasingly become an election issue, with Trump appearing at the BTC 2024 conference in Nashville to announce his crypto policy, it remains absent from mainstream events such as the first presidential debate in June.
