(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin flirted with a run toward the landmark $100,000 level, buoyed by expectations of friendly US regulations and expanding investor interest courtesy of President-elect Donald Trump’s support for crypto.
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The largest digital asset traded at $98,550 as of 7:03 a.m. Friday in Singapore after briefly scaling a record $99,000 on Thursday in the US. The crypto market as a whole has gained about $1 trillion since Trump’s Nov. 5 election win.
Among the latest in a recent tide of US developments, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler plans to step down on Jan. 20, when Trump is due to be inaugurated. Gensler’s tenure was marked by a flurry of SEC crypto enforcement actions, which the industry expects will peter out under Trump.
Trump’s transition team has begun to hold discussions over whether to create a new White House post dedicated to digital-asset policy. Crypto is seeking a direct line to the president-elect, who is now an industry cheerleader.
Charles Schwab
The Trump inflection is filtering across Wall Street. Charles Schwab Corp.’s incoming Chief Executive Officer Rick Wurster said Thursday the firm will get into offering spot crypto trading once regulatory changes materialize.
Bitcoin accumulator MicroStrategy Inc.’s plans to accelerate purchases of the token, and the debut of options on US Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, also lifted sentiment this week.
“We can focus on news that SEC Chair Gary Gensler will step down on Jan. 20, sizeable inflows into the ETFs, and the role that options play in driving prices higher, but this is an out-and-out momentum rally, and $100,000 is acting as a magnet,” Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group, wrote in a note.
Advocates of Bitcoin’s claimed role as a modern-day store of value cherish the $100,000 level as a symbolic rebuttal of skeptics who see little utility in crypto and decry its links to crime. While the token has more than doubled in price this year, many experts still question its fitness for investment portfolios.
‘Very Volatile’
“Bitcoin is not something you can value,” Themis Themistocleous, EMEA chief investment officer at UBS Wealth Management, said on Bloomberg Television. “It’s very volatile, and we think you can have in your portfolio other hedges like gold, that all the time prove to be a much more effective hedge.”
