“Trump’s embrace of crypto has diminished the reputational and regulatory risk that crypto carried with it,” said Strahinja Savic, head of data and analytics at FRNT Financial. “Mainstay US financial institutions are being given the green light to participate in this market and the market is beginning to price this new dynamic.”
US President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of crypto supporters to serve in his next administration has also helped markets. Bitcoin surpassed US$100,000 on Dec 5 for the first time after Trump nominated Paul Atkins for chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It reached a record high of US$103,800 that day.
The largest cryptocurrency by market value was about 1.8% higher to US$101,548 on Friday, and up a similar amount on the week. Bitcoin trades around the close. Bloomberg measures the weekly changes Sunday to Sunday.
See also: Alexander Hamilton’s three lessons for stablecoins
Bitcoin has also seen gains from inflows to Bitcoin exchange-traded funds. More investors have been looking to get exposure to Bitcoin, Peter Chung, head of research at Presto Research wrote in a note to clients.
“Even for investors facing legal or social constraints on directly holding BTC, Bitcoin finds a way via ETFs or equities/bonds issued by MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Coinbase,” Chung wrote.
