(Reuters) -Bitcoin rose to a record high above $106,000 in early Asian trading on Monday, boosted by comments from President-elect Donald Trump suggesting he plans to create a strategic reserve of bitcoin in the United States similar to his strategic reserve. of oil.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest and best-known cryptocurrency, peaked at $106,533 and was last trading at $105,688. The smaller crypto ether rose almost 3% to 4,014.
“We’re in blue sky territory here,” said IG analyst Tony Sycamore. “The next figure the market will look for is $110,000. The pullback that many people were expecting simply didn’t happen, because now we have this news.”
“We’re going to do something great with cryptocurrencies because we don’t want China or anyone else (not just China but others adopting it) and we want to be the head of it,” Trump told CNBC late last week.
When asked if he plans to build a crypto reserve similar to oil reserves, Trump said: “Yes, I think so.”
Other countries have also been considering strategic cryptocurrency reserves.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month questioned the need to hold state reserves in foreign currencies, saying domestic investment of such reserves was more attractive.
Putin said the current US administration was undermining the role of the US dollar as a reserve currency in the global economy by using it for political purposes, forcing many countries to turn to alternative assets, including cryptocurrencies.
“For example, bitcoin, who can ban it? Nobody,” Putin said.
There are skeptics, however: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell compared bitcoin to gold earlier this month.
“People don’t use it as a form of payment or as a store of value. It’s very volatile, it’s not a competitor for the dollar.”
CRYPTO BOOST
Bitcoin has risen more than 50% since the November 5 election in which Trump was elected along with many other pro-crypto candidates. The total value of the cryptocurrency market has nearly doubled so far this year to a record high of more than $3.8 trillion, according to data provider CoinGecko.
Trump this month named a White House czar for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies, former PayPal executive David Sacks, a close friend of Trump adviser and mega-donor Elon Musk.
Trump also said he would nominate pro-cryptocurrency Washington lawyer Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
On Friday, exchange operator Nasdaq said MicroStrategy will be added to the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index after a meteoric rise in shares of the bitcoin buyer.