Bitcoin not only broke but also significantly surpassed the long-awaited milestone of $100,000 in the early hours of Thursday, December 5, reaching $103,844.05, now recording a jump of more than 140% in 2024 and 48% since the US election. The jump was triggered by Donald Trump’s announcement that he plans to appoint cryptocurrency “friend” Paul Atkins to the key position of chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The announcement amounts to the fulfillment of his most important campaign promise for the crypto industry, which was to replace Gary Gensler, who had become unpleasant to investors with his intention to impose regulations. And long-time cryptocurrency investors, who have remained loyal to the king of cryptocurrencies even when the government or financial institutions have taken a negative stance towards it, duly celebrated upon hearing the news, sending its price soaring. Bitcoin was widely expected to reach the $100,000 milestone since the US presidential election. However, excited investors sent bitcoin closer to that point much earlier than initially expected, when it rose as high as $99,849.99 on Nov. 22, as investors expect Trump to implement several pro-crypto initiatives next year — including creating a national strategic reserve or bitcoin reserve, no taxes on cryptocurrency transactions, and opening up public crypto stock markets with more IPOs.
The Beginning
The original idea for Bitcoin was proposed at the height of the 2008 financial crisis: a “peer-to-peer version of electronic cash that would allow electronic payments to be sent directly from one place to another without going through a financial institution,” its founder Satoshi Nakamoto wrote in the Bitcoin White Paper.
The Turn
In recent years, however, the industry has proven bitcoin’s value to much of the institutional investment world. BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco and others launched the first spot bitcoin ETFs earlier this year – around the time of bitcoin’s “IPO” – and growing demand for them from institutions has helped drive the price up.
In November, Rick Wurster, the new CEO of Charles Schwab, said the company was preparing to enter spot cryptocurrency trading, in anticipation of regulatory changes expected in the next Trump administration.
On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that bitcoin is “like gold, only it’s virtual, it’s digital.” He further clarified that “people don’t use it as a means of payment or as a store of value” and that “it’s not competitive with the dollar, it’s really competitive with gold.”