- Congressman Mike Collins’ purchase gives Velodrome a boost and merges politics with the dynamics of the crypto market.
- VELO’s rise amid volatility highlights altcoin appeal and changing investment perceptions.
Amid the cryptocurrency carnage, with many major coins experiencing declines of more than 5%, an unexpected development has caught the attention of traders.
The politician’s crypto move
According to reports, US Congressman Mike Collins has led to a notable increase in Velodrome (VELO) trading volume. This surprising boost comes as the country gears up for the upcoming presidential elections in November.
An


Source: Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker/X
Well, this isn’t the first time Rep. Collins enters the crypto market.
According to the congressional trade dashboardCollins is known for its keen interest in digital assets and has previously announced a notable purchase of Ethereum [ETH] valued at $65,000 when he acquired it.
VELO’s price action
The incident had a bullish impact on the VELO token, which saw a 15% increase and was trading at $0.112 at the time of writing. This further underlines that this year’s presidential elections are not just about Bitcoin, but also about altcoins.
In fact, a recent one questionnaire on voters in the 2024 US election, conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Grayscale, suggested:
“Compared to November 2023, voters are also more likely to see crypto as a good long-term investment opportunity (23% vs. 19%) and increasingly expect part of their investment portfolio to include crypto (47% vs. 40%). ”
However, not everyone seemed happy with the news, as highlighted by an X user ’empty’who said,
“I have personally never heard of this coin and its market cap is less than $70 million. Has anyone heard of it?”
Interestingly, this highlights the uniqueness of Velodrome, which catches the attention of a politician and makes headlines.
Unlike established players such as Bitcoin [BTC] or Ethereum, Velodrome focuses on a specific niche such as decentralized finance (DeFi) on layer-2 networks.
Figures confirm the success of Velodrome
This was further confirmed by AMBCrypto’s analysis of Santiment data on VELO’s social dominance and social volume, which shows that Congressman Collins’ purchases were not the only catalyst for VELO’s rise.
In fact, both indicators have shown significant increases over the past week, with June 12 marking the highest peak in both social dominance and social volume.


Source: Santiment