Bitcoin surged past the long-anticipated $100,000 milestone for the first time late Wednesday night.
The leading cryptocurrency was last seen climbing over 4% to reach $103,544, according to Coin Metrics. At its peak earlier, it hit $103,844.05. Bitcoin has now risen more than 140% in 2024 and 48% since the election.
This surge followed President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that he would nominate Paul Atkins as the new chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, fulfilling a key campaign promise to the crypto community: replacing Gary Gensler, who has become a controversial figure in crypto due to the SEC’s regulation-by-enforcement approach under his leadership.
It’s a moment of celebration for long-time bitcoin investors who have weathered the highs and lows of the cryptocurrency’s volatility, all while government and financial institutions often remained dismissive—or outright antagonistic—toward the asset.
This surge is largely due to Bitcoin’s anti-establishment origins. The concept for Bitcoin was proposed during the 2008 financial crisis by its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, who wrote in the Bitcoin Whitepaper that a "peer-to-peer version of electronic cash" would allow for direct online payments without the need for financial institutions.
In recent years, however, the cryptocurrency has proven its value to many institutional investors. Major firms like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Invesco launched the first spot Bitcoin ETFs earlier this year — Bitcoin’s equivalent of an "IPO" moment — and rising demand from institutions has contributed to its price increase. In November, Rick Wurster, the incoming CEO of Charles Schwab, revealed that the firm plans to enter spot crypto trading, contingent on regulatory changes expected under the next Trump administration.
On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell compared Bitcoin to gold, calling it "just like gold, only virtual, it's digital." He clarified that while Bitcoin isn’t widely used for payments or as a store of value, it competes with gold, not the dollar.
“We’re witnessing a paradigm shift,” said Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, speaking to CNBC. “After four years of political purgatory, Bitcoin and the entire digital asset ecosystem are on the verge of becoming part of the financial mainstream.”
Bitcoin was widely expected to reach the $100,000 milestone following the U.S. presidential election. However, eager investors pushed the cryptocurrency closer to this level much sooner than anticipated, with it climbing to $99,849.99 on November 22. There is growing optimism that President-elect Trump will fulfill several pro-crypto promises in the coming year, including creating a national strategic bitcoin reserve, eliminating taxes on crypto transactions, and opening up the crypto public equity markets with more IPOs.
“Long-term, I’m bullish,” Novogratz remarked. “It won’t be a smooth, straight line, and investors should consider taking profits along the way. But with a pro-crypto administration set to take power in the U.S., it will be hard for the rest of the world not to take notice.”
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