Bitcoin’s record-breaking rally took the digital asset past $90,000 and lifted the overall value of the crypto market above its pandemic-era peak as traders bet on a boom under President-elect Donald Trump.
Crypto shares soared in overnight trading. MicroStrategy, Bit Digital surged over 9%; Coinbase jumped 7%; Marathon Digital rose 6%.
Trump has vowed friendlier crypto rules and his Republican Party is tightening its grip on Congress, boosting his odds of pushing through his agenda. Trump’s other pledges include setting up a strategic Bitcoin stockpile and fostering domestic mining of the token to make the US the crypto capital of the planet.
His stance is a sharp break from a Securities & Exchange Commission crackdown on the divisive industry under President Joe Biden. The change of tone has energized speculative buying of large and small tokens alike, raising the value of digital assets overall to about $3.1 trillion, CoinGecko data show.
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 Oct. 31 and Nov. 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. The febrile mood is illustrated by a recent doubling in the price of Dogecoin, a meme-crowd favorite promoted by Trump supporter Elon Musk.
Stretched Rally
Bitcoin is up roughly 110% in 2024, helped by robust demand for dedicated US ETFs and interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. The token’s rise exceeds the returns from the likes of global stocks and gold. Turnover in BlackRock Inc.’s $39 billion iShares Bitcoin Trust reached an all-time high on Monday.
Fairlead Strategies LLC technical analyst Katie Stockton in her latest research note said “it would be natural to see a period of digestion after such a steep run-up” in Bitcoin, recommending a “short-term neutral bias.”
Digital-asset companies spent heavily during the US 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.
His backing turned Bitcoin into one of a range of so-called Trump trades. Others include US stocks and the dollar, both of which have also been advancing given Trump’s focus on domestic economic growth, tax cuts and protectionist tariffs.