NEW YORK: Bitcoin rallied past US$81,000 for the first time, boosted by President-elect Donald Trump’s embrace of digital assets and the prospect of a Congress featuring pro-crypto lawmakers.
Trump was declared the winner in Arizona, marking a clean sweep of the seven US battleground states. His decisive victory in the presidential election has prompted celebratory chest-thumping from the digital-asset industry, which spent over US$100mil backing a range of crypto-friendly candidates.
The largest token climbed as much as 6.1% last Sunday, before extending the gain to an unprecedented US$81,497 early in the Asian day yesterday.
Bullish sentiment lifted smaller coins too, including a surge in dogecoin, a meme-crowd favorite promoted by Elon Musk.
“With the dust from Trump’s victory still settling down, it was only a matter of time before a run-up of some sort occurred given the perception of Trump being pro-crypto, and that’s what we’re seeing now,” said Le Shi, Hong Kong managing director at market-making firm Auros.
Trump vowed on the campaign trail to put the United States at the centre of the digital asset industry, including creating a strategic bitcoin stockpile and appointing regulators enamored with digital assets.
Jubilant traders for the moment are paying little heed to questions such as the speed of likely implementation or whether a strategic stockpile is a realistic possibility.
His broader agenda of stoking domestic economic growth, tax cuts and reducing red tape has fuelled a buying spree across stocks, credit and crypto.
The S&P 500 stock index last week hit its 50th record this year.
Bitcoin has added about 92% so far in 2024, helped by robust demand for dedicated US exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
The rise in the token, which scaled fresh records after last week’s US vote, exceeds the returns from investments such as stocks and gold.
The ETFs, powered by BlackRock Inc’s US$35bil iShares Bitcoin Trust, posted a record daily net inflow of almost US$1.4bil last Thursday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
A day earlier, the iShares ETF’s trading volume jumped to an all-time peak, all signs of how Trump’s victory is reshaping crypto.
Trump’s stance contrasts with a crackdown on digital assets under President Joe Biden.
Securities & Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler repeatedly labelled the sector as rife with fraud and misconduct.
The agency turned the screws on crypto following a 2022 market rout and a litany of collapses, notably the bankruptcy of Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraudulent FTX exchange.
Digital asset companies spent heavily during the election campaign to boost candidates viewed as favourable to their interests.
Against that backdrop, Trump did an about-face, becoming a supporter of an industry he once labelled a scam.
“Trump has promised supportive regulation, and the sweep of the House and the Senate makes the passage of crypto bills much more likely,” wrote Noelle Acheson, author of the Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter. — Bloomberg
