Market News

By Sunil Jagtiani

(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.

The largest digital asset traded at $98,944 as of 5:13 a.m. Friday in London after earlier hitting a record $99,368. The crypto market as a whole has gained about $1 trillion since Trump’s Nov. 5 election win. 

The latest US developments included Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler’s decision 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.”

A group of one dozen US ETFs investing in Bitcoin has attracted a net inflow of more than $6.8 billion in the period following Election Day, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The group’s total assets have surpassed $100 billion.

Trump has vowed to create a supportive US crypto regulatory framework and set up a strategic Bitcoin stockpile. The timeline for implementation of his promises and the feasibility of the Bitcoin reserve remain uncertain. 

The president-elect used to be a crypto skeptic but changed tack after digital-asset firms spent heavily during election campaigning to promote their interests. He also has his own digital-asset projects.

The current bout of optimism has dulled memories of a market rout in 2022 that exposed fraud and other risky practices and led to the collapse of platforms including Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange. The turmoil precipitated the SEC clampdown that now appears set to ease under Trump.

“Bitcoin represents change,” wrote Noelle Acheson, author of the Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter. For “those of us who long ago understood the potential for a new form of data transfer to alter how citizens view authority and how authority views society, it’s both encouraging and a bit alarming to see the validation,” she said.