Cryptocurrency is that vexing thing. It has no intrinsic value, no fundamentals and for the most part no utility. It flouts every rule in the financial book and yet, for some, delivers returns that would make a profitable blue-chip blush.
See bitcoin, up by roughly half in US dollar terms year to date at around $69,500. Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick sees it hitting $73,000 on election day, and forecasts another 10 per cent pop in ensuing days if Donald Trump wins.
More bewildering is the resurgence of dogecoin and fellow memecoins, a stable that makes bitcoin look gilt-edged. Canine meme-based dogecoin (slogan: “wow much coin”) is up by a half in the past month, giving it a market capitalisation of $23.3bn, according to CoinMarketCap. Fellow kennel mate, shiba inu weighs in at $10.2bn.