The bitcoin price soared and past the long-awaited $100,000 benchmark for the first time ever, late Wednesday evening. The flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin rally was more than 4% at $103,544.00, according to Coin Metrics. Earlier, it rose as high as $103,844.05. Bitcoin price is now up more than 140% in 2024 and 48% since the election. The rally in Bitcoin price was seen since election of Donald Trump as president of the U.S. spurred expectations that his administration will create a friendly regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin topped 100k hours after it was announced that plans were made to nominate Paul Atkins as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Bitcoin has more than doubled in value this year and is up about 45% in the four weeks since election.
Bitcoin’s historic price rise
Bitcoin last traded at $100,027 as of 0240 GMT, up 2.2% on the previous session, after earlier rising as high as $100,277.
“We’re witnessing a paradigm shift. After four years of political purgatory, bitcoin and the entire digital asset ecosystem are on the brink of entering the financial mainstream,” said Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of U.S. crypto firm Galaxy Digital.
“This momentum is fueled by institutional adoption, advancements in tokenization and payments, and a clearer regulatory path.”
Will Bitcoin become mainstream?
More than 16 years after its creation, bitcoin appears on the cusp of mainstream acceptance, despite naysayers and a history of controversies.
It’s a day of celebration for longtime bitcoin investors, who have held on for dear life, or “HODL’d” through several of the cryptocurrency’s boom and bust cycles, during which government and financial institutions remained dismissive and even hostile toward the asset class.
That’s largely because of the cryptocurrency’s anti-establishment roots. The original idea for Bitcoin was proposed at the height of the 2008 financial crisis: a “peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution,” its founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, wrote in the Bitcoin Whitepaper.
Increasing value in institutional investing firms
In the past few years, the industry has demonstrated the value of bitcoin to much of the institutional investing world. BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco and others launched the first spot bitcoin ETFs at the beginning of this year and the growing demand for them by institutions has helped drive the price higher. In November, Rick Wurster, the incoming CEO of Charles Schwab, said the firm is preparing to enter spot crypto trading, pending regulatory changes expected in the next Trump administration.
The SEC had long attempted to block ETFs from investing in bitcoin, citing investor protection concerns, but the products have allowed more investors, including institutional investors, to gain exposure to bitcoin.
Is Bitcoin new gold?
On Wednesday, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said bitcoin is “just like gold only it’s virtual, it’s digital,” speaking at the DealBook conference. He further clarified that “people are not using it as a form of payment, or as a store of value” and that “it’s not a competitor for the dollar, it’s really a competitor for gold.”
There is much hope that crypto can be included in the establishment of a national strategic bitcoin reserve or stockpile, no taxes on crypto transactions and opening up the crypto public equity markets with more IPOs.
Bitcoin tops 100k, a milestone
“Bitcoin crossing $100,000 is more than just a milestone; it’s a testament to shifting tides in finance, technology, and geopolitics,” said Justin D’Anethan, a Hong Kong-based independent crypto analyst.
“The figure not that long ago dismissed as fantasy, stands as a reality.”
Bitcoin’s rebound from a slide below $16,000 in late 2022 has been rapid, boosted by the approval of U.S.-listed bitcoin exchange-traded funds in January this year.
Crypto-related stocks rise
There was a strong debut for options on BlackRock’s ETF in November with call options substantially more popular than puts. McCann calculated the put to call ratio at about 22 to one.
Crypto-related stocks have soared along with the bitcoin price, with shares in bitcoin miner MARA Holdings up around 65% in November.
Steven McClurg, founder of Canary Capital, a digital assets investment firm said he expects bitcoin’s price to hit $120,000 by Christmas.
