The surge extended into Monday, with combined USDT and USDC turnover reaching 1.84 billion reais ($350 million), 65% higher than in the previous week, while bitcoin trading rose more than ninefold to 1,336 BTC.
The increases came as volumes fell elsewhere. On Binance, for example, bitcoin turnover against the real rose 370% while the global BTC/USDT pair recorded a 25% decline.
Bitcoin gained 9.4% against the real while slipping 0.2% against USDT, consistent with a repricing of Brazil’s currency as investors reacted to the election.
Prediction markets miss
The expectation of a Bolsonaro victory was also reflected in prediction markets. In an Oct. 24 preview, Kalshi put his chances of winning at 84%, even as its own article described polling as showing an exceedingly close race.
Kalshi and Polymarket have both been blocked in Brazil since April.
Lula won the runoff the next day, in an election that included a controversial last-minute two-hour extension to voting time granted by Lula’s former defense attorney.
“[Prediction markets] were trading the first-round result, poll headlines and the story built around them,” Einar Knobel, CEO and co-founder of sports data and technology company TxODDS, told CoinDesk in an emailed statement.
“I would not read this as a failure of prediction markets,” Knobel said. “The mechanism did what it is designed to do with the information it was given.”
