Bitcoin has surged past the $100,000 threshold, driven by a wave of investor optimism fueled by United States president-elect Donald Trump’s newly pro-crypto stance.
The cryptocurrency reached an impressive high of $103,800 on Thursday, marking a 50 percent increase since Trump’s victory in November.
This upward momentum was further accelerated after Trump nominated crypto proponent Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, hinting at a more favorable regulatory outlook for the industry.
Atkins’ nomination, coupled with Trump’s vow to make the U.S. “the bitcoin superpower of the world,” has invigorated the crypto market. “Bitcoin reaching $100k is an incredible milestone for our movement,” said Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com. “We never doubted. We never wavered. And we will never stop building.”
Trump’s crypto-friendly approach also saw the appointment of Howard Lutnick to the Commerce Department and Elon Musk to co-lead the newly formed “Department of Government Efficiency,” humorously dubbed “DOGE” after the popular cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which has risen by 150 percent since the election.
This marks a sharp contrast to the crypto sector’s struggles two years ago when the collapse of FTX and regulatory crackdowns saw Bitcoin plummet to just $16,000.
Today, institutional investments are flooding in, with BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF alone managing $45 billion in assets.
Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder of Gemini, encapsulated the current market sentiment, “This bitcoin bull run is different. We have a pro-tech president-elect, a red Senate, a red House, and a mandate from the country to build.”
With $4.4 billion pouring into crypto ETFs since November, and companies like MicroStrategy planning to raise $42 billion for further Bitcoin investments, analysts are predicting a “golden era” for digital assets under Trump’s administration.
In early November, reports revealed that Bitcoin had already breached the $80,000 mark, setting an all-time high of $81,858 amid the optimism surrounding Trump’s pro-crypto policies. Just days later, the cryptocurrency soared above $90,000.
As of 5:33 AM on CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin was priced at $102,724.32, reflecting a more than 7 percent increase in the past 24 hours.
Notably, Trump’s earlier term was marked by skepticism towards digital currencies, but he has since embraced the crypto space, promising to position the U.S. as the “crypto capital of the planet.”
In a statement covered by CNBC, Trump pledged to retain “100 percent of all the Bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires in the future” and to remove SEC Chair Gary Gensler, whose leadership had seen over 100 regulatory actions against crypto firms.
