SINGAPORE — Bitcoin closed in on the historic US$100,000 level, fuelled by optimism that President-elect Donald Trump's support for crypto heralds a boom as the United States pivots to friendly regulations in place of a crackdown.
The largest digital asset rose more than 3% to a record high of $97,659 as of 12.57pm Thursday in Singapore. The crypto market as a whole added to gains of about $900 billion since Trump's election victory on Nov 5.
Trump's transition team has begun to hold discussions over whether to create a White House post dedicated to digital-asset policy. The industry is pitching for the position — which would be the first of its kind in the US — to have a direct line to the president-elect, who is now one of crypto's biggest cheerleaders.
The talks are the latest US boost for digital-asset market sentiment, alongside Bitcoin accumulator MicroStrategy Inc's plans to accelerate purchases of the token and the debut of options on the nation’s Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
Speculators are increasingly focused on when rather than if Bitcoin will make a further leap to $100,000. Advocates of its claimed role as a modern-day store of value cherish the six-figure level as a symbolic rebuttal of sceptics who see little utility in crypto and decry its links to money laundering and crime.
"Buyers are strangling the sellers," said IG Australia Pty Market Analyst Tony Sycamore. "While I'm not sure it's all going to be smooth sailing as it edges closer to the $100,000 mark, the demand appears to be insatiable."
Sycamore also flagged speculation that "a big seller" has been disposing of tokens in the low $90,000s, taking advantage of the strong market.
In a recent post on X, formerly Twitter, billionaire Michael Novogratz, founder of Galaxy Digital LP, highlighted a Bitcoin "sell wall" of more than $10 billion, while adding that a large amount of the token was also bought in the past six days.
MicroStrategy, the largest publicly traded corporate holder of Bitcoin, on Wednesday announced an almost 50% increase in planned sales of convertible senior notes, to $2.6 billion, to fund purchases of the token.
The once obscure software maker now bills itself as a Bitcoin treasury company and has a roughly $31 billion stockpile of the digital asset.
Donald Trump gestures at the Bitcoin 2024 event in Nashville, Tennessee, the United States, on July 27, 2024. (Photo: Reuters)
Trump has vowed to create a supportive US crypto regulatory framework and set up a strategic Bitcoin stockpile. The timeline for implementation of his promises and the feasibility of the Bitcoin reserve both remain uncertain. The president-elect used to be a crypto sceptic but changed tack after digital-asset firms spent heavily during election campaigning to promote their interests.
The current bout of optimism in crypto has dulled memories of a market rout in 2022 that exposed fraud and other risky practices and led to the collapse of platforms including Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange. The turmoil precipitated a flurry of enforcement actions by the US Securities & Exchange Commission, a clampdown the industry expects will peter out under Trump.