(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin approached the all-time high of $100,000, boosted by optimism that President-elect Donald Trump’s support for cryptocurrencies heralds a boom as the United States pivots toward friendly regulations rather than a crackdown.
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The largest digital asset rose as much as 3.6% to a record $97,892 on Thursday before falling below $97,000 at 8:40 a.m. in London. The crypto market as a whole has gained approximately $900 billion since Trump’s election victory on November 5.
Trump’s transition team has begun debating whether to create a White House position dedicated to digital asset policy. The industry is bidding for the position, which would be the first of its kind in the US, to have a direct line to the president-elect, who is now one of the biggest supporters of cryptocurrencies.
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The talks are the latest American boost to digital asset market sentiment, along with plans by Bitcoin accumulator MicroStrategy Inc. to accelerate purchases of the token and the debut of options on the country’s Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
Reference level
Speculators are increasingly focusing on when, rather than if, Bitcoin will make the jump to $100,000. Defenders of their supposed role as a modern store of value appreciate the six-figure number as a symbolic rebuttal to skeptics who see little use in cryptocurrencies and denounce their links to money laundering and crime.
“Buyers are strangling sellers,” said Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG Australia Pty. “While I’m not sure everything will go well as we approach the $100,000 mark, demand seems be insatiable.”
MicroStrategy, the largest publicly traded corporate holder of Bitcoin, on Wednesday announced a nearly 50% increase in planned sales of convertible senior notes, to $2.6 billion, to fund purchases of the token. The once-unknown software maker now bills itself as a Bitcoin treasury company and has a stash of roughly $31 billion of the digital asset.
ETF inflows
A group of a dozen U.S. ETFs investing in Bitcoin have attracted net inflows of $5.8 billion in the period after Election Day, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The group’s total assets have reached an unprecedented $100 billion.
Caroline Mauron, co-founder of Orbit Markets, a liquidity provider for crypto derivatives, described $100,000 as a “huge psychological level,” while adding that Bitcoin’s options betting pattern had pointed to an uptick in volatility.