At 23:05 UTC (or 19:05 EDT) on Monday (June 1), 15 minutes after President Donald Trump finished explaining (during a speech from the White House’s Rose Garden) how he was going to stop the rioting and looting going on across the U.S., the price of Bitcoin surged above $10,000 for the first time since May 7.
According to the White House, President Trump started delivering his prepared statement at 22:43 UTC (or 18:43 EDT).
Here are a few highlights from this speech, which took place on the sixth day of riots across the U.S. following the death of George Floyd whilst under custody of Minneapolis police:
“All Americans were rightly sickened and revolted by the brutal death of George Floyd… But we cannot allow the righteous cries and peaceful protesters to be drowned out by an angry mob.
“The biggest victims of the rioting are peace-loving citizens in our poorest communities, and as their President, I will fight to keep them safe. I will fight to protect you. I am your President of law and order, and an ally of all peaceful protesters…
“But in recent days, our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa, and others…
“That is why I am taking immediate presidential action to stop the violence and restore security and safety in America. I am mobilizing all available federal resources — civilian and military — to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson, and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your Second Amendment rights…
“Today, I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets…
“If a city or a state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
President Trump finished his speech at 22:50 UTC (or 18:50 EDT), which is when Bitcoin’s price surge started; according to data from CryptoCompare, Bitcoin was trading around $9,718 at 22:50.
The Bitcoin price then spiked above $10K approximately 15 minutes after the President’s speech ended and by 23:35 UTC (or 19:35 EDT), or 45 minutes after the speech finished, Bitcoin’s price had reached $10,332, as you can see from the 24-hour BTC-USD price below:
Here is how crypto-focused behavior analytics startup Santiment commented on Bitcoin’s price action:
1/ With $BTC back over $10,000 for the first time since a brief scrape above this threshold in early May, we are revisiting our long-term key triple volume measurement to analyze the health of both the on-chain and social metrics that are vital to justify pic.twitter.com/nYQjVUOeAS
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) June 2, 2020
2/ a rising trend that #Bitcoin is enjoying right now. On the yearly timeframe, $BTC shows a clear rise in DAA, trading volume, and an up-and-down social volume. Though this price could hold and push toward $11,000 and beyond, the shorter term monthly is more of a small decline pic.twitter.com/6H3ZDvKxhV
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) June 2, 2020
3/ for these same three metrics since the beginning of May. With these mixed results in network health, we advise staying cautious here and watching $BTC metrics (using our link above) to see which way momentum begins moving over this next week. It will be crucial to see whether
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) June 2, 2020
Finally, Santiment says that either FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) “kicks in now, or profit takers end up taking the safe route with the expectation of buying below $10,000 again.”
As for the rest of the crypto market, 46 of the top 50 cryptoassets are currently (as of 06:30 UTC on June 2) in the green.
Here are a few examples:
One cryptoasset that is worthy of a closer look is OMG Network, which was known as OmiseGo (OMG) until yesterday, when a rebranding took place.
Below is the one-month OMG-USD price chart:
As you can see, the OMG price started surging on May 14 following an announcement by crypto exchange Coinbase that OMG would soon be listed on Coinbase Pro, which is Coinbase’s trading platform for experienced/professional traders. On May 19, OMG began trading on Coinbase Pro.
Then, yesterday, OMG Network published a press release from Bitfinex on its blog. This announcement stated that crypto exchange Bitfinex (which is owned by the same parent company as stablecoin issuer Tether) had integrated Tether (USDT) on OMG Network for faster and cheaper transactions:
“The integration of USDt onto the OMG Network will reduce confirmation times, make payments faster, and lowers transaction costs at the same level of security as Ethereum. The Bitfinex platform will enable USDt deposits and withdrawals on the OMG Network.”
Vansa Chatikavanij, CEO at OMG Network. had this to say:
“Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of the OMG Network that supports thousands of transactions per second and reduces transaction costs to a third of Ethereum.
“We’re delighted to partner with Bitfinex to address blockchain’s scalability issues and drive further growth and adoption of open financial services.”
As crypto journalist/researcher Zack Voell later pointed out, this was Tether’s eighth launch:
In other news, Tether is about to launch on its *eighth* protocol. Unbelievable execution https://t.co/EzefONNtVY pic.twitter.com/49qYBjPqWy
— Zack Voell (@zackvoell) June 1, 2020
In the past one-month period, the OMG price has gone up 133.15% against USD.
