The cryptocurrency Bitcoin has surpassed the $100,000 mark for the first time in history. Bitcoin price is pushed up by expectations that Donald Trump as President of the United States will lead a policy favourable to cryptocurrencies.
The cost of bitcoin for the first time in history rose above $100 thousand on Thursday on the exchange Binance. In November, the cryptocurrency began to rise in price after the US presidential election, which was won by Donald Trump. At that moment the price was at $68 thousand.
Such growth is associated with the Republican’s statements about the cryptocurrency market. Trump, in particular, promised to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” and to accumulate a stockpile of bitcoins. He said:
“If cryptocurrency is going to determine the future, I want it to be mined, minted and produced in the United States.”
Experts polled by Reuters in the first half of November pointed to Trump’s exceptional merit in boosting the price of bitcoin. Nick Tweedale, a market analyst at ATFX Global in Sydney, said the incoming president was supportive of the industry, while the cryptocurrency itself was apparently undervalued.
As Matthew Dibb, chief investment officer at cryptocurrency asset management firm Astronaut Capital, pointed out, Trump’s policies are increasing the chances that other nations will start buying bitcoin, “trying to get ahead of the US.”
Shares of companies involved in mining and trading cryptocurrencies have also started to rise amid the rise in the price of bitcoin.
Before Trump’s election, bitcoin’s rise this year was fuelled by the popularity of exchange-traded funds launched in January that invest directly in the token. They emerged after a long legal fight between one issuer and the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
ETFs managed by Wall Street giants such as BlackRock Inc. and Fidelity, and Grayscale Investments now control about $100 billion in assets, or about 5 per cent of all bitcoin in circulation.
