Late Wednesday night saw the price of bitcoin leap above the eagerly anticipated $100,000 milestone for the first time ever.
The leading cryptocurrency withdrew from the milestone by Thursday afternoon. According to Coin Metrics, it was recently up 0.28% at $99,140.00, trading at the lows of Thursday’s trade after some investors took profits. It reached as high as $103,844.05. on Wednesday night.
Following President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that he intended to name Paul Atkins as the Securities and Exchange Commission’s chair, the action was taken. By replacing Gary Gensler, who has become into a bit of a monster in the crypto world due to the agency’s regulation-by-enforcement strategy against the sector under his direction, the nomination may fulfill Trump’s most significant campaign pledge to the sector.
In a Thursday morning post on Truth Social, Trump congratulated bitcoiners, adding that we will rebuild America’s greatness together and that you are welcome for his contribution to getting bitcoin to $100,000.
For seasoned bitcoin investors who have hung on for dear life, or HODL, through multiple cycles of the cryptocurrency’s boom and crash, while the government and financial institutions continued to be contemptuous and even antagonistic toward the asset class, it is a day of celebration.
The cryptocurrency’s anti-establishment origins are partly to blame for that. Bitcoin’s founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, first proposed the idea for the cryptocurrency during the height of the 2008 financial crisis. He wrote in the Bitcoin Whitepaper that a peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would enable online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without passing through a financial institution.
However, the industry has shown a large portion of the institutional investing community the worth of bitcoin in recent years.The first spot bitcoin ETFs were introduced by BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco, and others at the start of this year’s IPO, and the price has increased due to the increasing demand from institutions. Charles Schwab’s incoming CEO, Rick Wurster, stated in November that the company is getting ready to start spot cryptocurrency trading, subject to regulatory changes anticipated under the new Trump government.
Speaking at the DealBook conference on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell claimed that bitcoin is similar to gold, but it is digital and virtual. He went on to explain that it is not being used as a store of value or as a means of payment, and that it is actually a rival to gold rather than the dollar.
A paradigm change is taking place. Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, told CNBC that bitcoin and the entire digital asset ecosystem are about to make their way into the mainstream of finance after four years in political limbo.
Since the U.S. presidential election, it had been generally anticipated that Bitcoin will hit the historic $100,000 threshold. Excited investors, however, brought bitcoin closer to this milestone far earlier than first thought; on November 22, it reached a high of $99,849.99.
There is a lot of optimism that Trump would implement a number of pro-crypto policies in the upcoming year, such as creating a national strategic bitcoin reserve or stockpile, removing taxes on cryptocurrency transactions, and expanding the number of initial public offerings (IPOs) in the cryptocurrency public equities markets.
“I’m bullish on the long run,” Novogratz continued. Investors should always think about taking gains off the table because it won’t be a straight line up. However, it will be difficult for the rest of the world to ignore the impending arrival of a pro-crypto administration in the United States.
Since the election, Bitcoin has increased by 42% and more than 133% in 2024.
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