Bitcoin reaches record high, vaults toward $100,000

Bitcoin vaulted to a record high on Thursday, surging more than 3% in early market activity and hurtling toward investors’ long-sought milestone of $100,000.

The worth of bitcoin briefly exceeded $98,000 for the first period on Thursday morning, before retreating to about $97,600.

The worth of the globe’s most popular cryptocurrency has soared 31% since the reelection of former President Donald Trump, who is widely viewed as amiable toward digital funds.

By comparison, the S&P 500 has climbed 2.4% since Election Day, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has increased 2.6%.

The run-up of bitcoin extended to other parts of the crypto industry. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, jumped 8% in early market activity on Thursday. Lesser-known litecoin rose nearly 6%, and dogecoin ticked up more than 2%.

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to bolster the cryptocurrency sector and ease regulations enforced by the Biden administration. Trump also promised to establish the federal government’s first National Strategic Bitcoin safety net.

Trump said he would replace stocks and bonds and trade percentage Chair Gary Gensler, whom many crypto proponents dislike for what they perceive as a robust way to crypto regulation.

In July, Trump told the spectators at a cryptocurrency conference in Nashville, Tennessee, that he wanted to turn the U.S. into the “crypto fund of the earth.”

“I’m calling it the ‘election distribution,'” James Butterfill, head of research at digital property management firm CoinShares, told ABC information. “We went from being worried about a Democrat getting elected to what we’ve got: a Republican tidy sweep.”

The recent rise follows a period of stellar returns that stretches back to last year. The worth of bitcoin has soared more than 150% since November 2023. Over that period, the S&P 500 has climbed about 30%.

Those gains have been propelled, in part, by U.S. approval in January of bitcoin ETFs, or trade-traded funds. Bitcoin ETFs allow investors to buy into an property that tracks the worth movement of bitcoin, while avoiding the inconvenience and uncertainty of purchasing the crypto coin itself.

Options market activity for bitcoin ETFs

On Tuesday, options on BlackRock’s popular iShares Bitcoin depend ETF (IBIT) were made available for market activity on the Nasdaq. The options, which provide a recent avenue for bitcoin investors, allow individuals to commit to buy or sell the ETF at a given worth by a specific date. While such investments typically arrive with additional uncertainty, they can also make large payouts.

The worth of IBIT jumped 3.1% on Thursday.

The newly available options may account for some of the rise in the worth of bitcoin over recent days, Bryan Armour, the director of inactive strategies research at budgetary firm Morningstar, told ABC information.

“The options add volatility on top of volatility, which has interested some of the crypto investors,” Armour said.

The crypto industry entered this year bruised after a series of high-profile collapses and corporation scandals.

FTX, a multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency trade co-founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, collapsed in November 2022. The implosion set off a 17-month legal saga that resulted in the conviction of Bankman-Fried for fraud. In April, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The surge of bitcoin since Election Day may continue for the foreseeable upcoming, since history periods of momentum have been shown to propel the cryptocurrency, Armour said. But crypto investments remain highly volatile, he added, recommending that the property make up no more than 5% of a person’s financing collection.

“It’s notoriously challenging to provide a worth for bitcoin’s worth,” Armour said. “It can leave up; it can leave down.”

“I would continue to keep any apportionment tiny,” Armour added.