Bitcoin rallied past $81,000 for the first time, boosted by President-elect Donald Trump’s embrace of digital assets and the prospect of a Congress featuring pro-crypto lawmakers.
Trump was declared the winner in Arizona, marking a clean sweep of the seven US battleground states. His decisive victory in the presidential election has prompted celebratory chest-thumping from the digital-asset industry, which spent over $100 million backing a range of crypto-friendly candidates.
The largest token climbed as much as 6.1% on Sunday, before extending the gain to an unprecedented $81,497 early in the Asian day on Monday. Bullish sentiment lifted smaller coins too, including a surge in Dogecoin, a meme-crowd favorite promoted by Trump supporter Elon Musk.
“With the dust from Trump’s victory still settling down, it was only a matter of time before a run-up of some sort occurred given the perception of Trump being pro-crypto, and that’s what we’re seeing now,” said Le Shi, Hong Kong managing director at market-making firm Auros.
Trump vowed on the campaign trail to put the US at the center of the digital-asset industry, including creating a strategic Bitcoin stockpile and appointing regulators enamored with digital assets.
Jubilant traders for the moment are paying little heed to questions such as the speed of likely implementation or whether a strategic stockpile is a realistic possibility.
His broader agenda of stoking domestic economic growth, tax cuts and reducing red tape has fueled a buying spree across stocks, credit and crypto. The S&P 500 stock index last week hit its 50th record this year.
