7 hours Ago By Belmont Lay
Bitcoin neared US$100,000 (S$134,565) for the first time on Nov. 22 (Singapore time). The price was at US$99,211 as of Friday, 11:15am.
The jump in price has pushed Bitcoin's market cap to US$1.96 trillion (S$2.64 trillion), and allowed the combined crypto market to creep back above US$3 trillion (S$4.
04 trillion) for the first time since 2021. The world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency has been on a tear since this year's low of US$38,505 (S$51,814) in late January. It is up about 45 per cent in the two weeks since Donald Trump won the presidential election.
Trump's victory has fuelled expectations that his administration will create a friendly regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies, Reuters reported. A host of other factors have pushed the price up: A variety of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have hit Wall Street, as well as expectations of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. Interestingly, a top Federal Reserve official in the U.
S. has suddenly softened his criticism of bitcoin and crypto, which came as a surprise flip . "I will have an open mind," Minneapolis Federal Reserve president Neel Kashkari told Coindesk a week ago.
Kashkari previously called bitcoin and cryptocurrencies "worthless", "fraudulent", and "nonsense". In 2020, he even compared the crypto market to a "giant garbage dumpster". However, Kashkari's change of heart was accompanied by a caveat as he asked, "other than as a speculative asset, what does it actually do in the real economy?" The latest bulk of optimism from traders and those in the industry can also be attributed to a perceived friendliness to cryptocurrency by the incoming Trump administration.
Trump's top team is meeting with bitcoin and crypto experts and industry executives to discuss creating a White House role dedicated to cryptocurrency policy, overseeing policy and regulation across the federal government, Bloomberg reported , citing anonymous sources. There was talk that Trump could appoint the first-ever White House "crypto czar". This will add to the expectations that Trump could create a U.
S. bitcoin strategic reserve. This would see him follow through on promises made during a July bitcoin conference to make the U.
S. the "crypto capital of the planet". Top photo via Unsplash.
