Bitcoin catapulted above $100,000 for the first time on Thursday morning, a milestone hailed even by sceptics as a coming-of-age for cryptocurrencies as investors bet on a friendly U.S. administration to cement cryptos’ place in financial markets.
The total value of the cryptocurrency market has almost doubled over the year so far to hit a record just shy of $3.8 trillion, according to data provider CoinGecko. By comparison, Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab alone is worth about $3.7 trillion.
Bitcoin’s march from the libertarian fringe to Wall Street has minted millionaires, a new asset class and popularised the concept of “decentralised finance” in a volatile and often controversial period since its creation 16 years ago.
Bitcoin has more than doubled in value this year and is up more than 50% in the four weeks since Donald Trump’s sweeping election victory, which also saw a slew of pro-crypto lawmakers being elected to Congress.
Once it broke $100,000 in Thursday’s Asian morning, it was soon above $103,000 and was last fetching $103,335 .
“We’re witnessing a paradigm shift,” said Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of U.S. crypto firm Galaxy Digital.
“Bitcoin and the entire digital asset ecosystem are on the brink of entering the financial mainstream – this momentum is fuelled by institutional adoption, advancements in tokenisation and payments, and a clearer regulatory path.”
Trump embraced digital assets during his campaign, promising to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and to accumulate a national stockpile of bitcoin.
“We were trading basically sideways for about seven months, then immediately after Nov. 5, U.S. investors resumed buying hand-over-fist,” said Joe McCann, CEO and founder of Asymmetric, a Miami digital assets hedge fund.
On Wednesday, Trump said he would nominate Paul Atkins to run the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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