The largest token has jumped about 30% since the US election on November 5 and reached an all-time high of $89,599 in early Asian trading on Tuesday.
Trump has vowed friendlier crypto rules and his Republican Party is tightening its grip on Congress to push through his agenda. Other pledges include setting up a strategic US Bitcoin stockpile and boosting domestic mining of the token.
His stance is a sharp break from a crackdown on the divisive industry by the Securities & Exchange Commission under President Joe Biden’s administration. The shift has energized speculative buying of large and small tokens alike, raising the value of digital assets to more than $3 trillion, CoinGecko data show.
Bitcoin is in “beast mode,” Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group, wrote in a note. “The question for traders not already set is whether there is still room to chase this red-hot play or wait for a slight retracement and for some of the heat to come out of the impulsive trend.”
In the options market, investors are lining up bets that Bitcoin will pass $100,000 as soon as the end of the year, according to data from the Deribit exchange. Meanwhile, software firm MicroStrategy Inc. — the largest publicly-traded corporate holder of Bitcoin outside the exchange-traded fund sector — bought about 27,200 Bitcoin for some $2 billion between October 31 and November 10.
Traders for now are paying little heed to questions such as how quickly Trump will implement his agenda or whether a strategic stockpile is a realistic step.
Bitcoin has more than doubled so far in 2024, helped by robust demand for dedicated US ETFs and interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. The rise in the token exceeds the returns from investments such as stocks and gold.
Digital-asset companies spent heavily during the election campaign to boost candidates viewed as favorable to their interests. Against that backdrop, Trump did an about-face, becoming a supporter of an industry he once labeled a scam.
