by Sunil Jagtiani
Bitcoin is back in the vicinity of an all-time peak, supported by a series of developments highlighting the deepening embrace of the digital-asset industry in the US under crypto cheerleader Donald Trump.
At the top of the tape was the revelation that the president-elect’s Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. is in talks to buy digital-asset marketplace Bakkt Holdings Inc., which sparked a surge in the shares of both companies.
Other developments included Nasdaq Inc.’s plan to list options on the $43 billion iShares Bitcoin Trust as early as Tuesday and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s push to spin out its digital-asset platform, signs of how crypto and its underlying blockchain technology are burrowing deeper into the financial system.
Bitcoin jumped as high as $92,606 on Monday in the US before changing hands at $91,781 as of 6:16 a.m. Tuesday in London, about $1,681 below a record set last week. The largest digital asset is up 37% since Trump’s Nov. 5. election win on a platform that included making the US the world’s crypto capital.
“The crypto scene is on the move once again,” Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group, wrote in a note, adding that Trump Media’s play for Bakkt is “another piece of positive news that is lifting sentiment.”
Trump has vowed to create a supportive US regulatory framework for digital assets and set up a strategic Bitcoin stockpile. The timeline for implementation of his promises and the feasibility of the Bitcoin reserve remain uncertain.
Such questions are feeding into debates about whether Bitcoin, and crypto broadly, can keep rallying. The highest concentration of open interest — or outstanding contracts — in the options market is for bullish bets on Bitcoin reaching $100,000, based on data from the Deribit exchange.
Fairlead Strategies LLC technical analyst Katie Stockton said some signals from chart patterns point to the possibility of Bitcoin gains in the next several weeks toward a target of about $98,100. IG Australia Pty Market Analyst Tony Sycamore expressed a preference for buying Bitcoin corrections back toward $80,000.
BlackRock Inc.’s iShares Bitcoin Trust is the world’s largest portfolio investing in the token. Options on the fund may attract fresh investment to the crypto ecosystem by expanding trading possibilities. The iShares product is one of 12 US spot-Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, a group that as whole attracted net inflows of about $4 billion in the period following Election Day.
The current bout of optimism in crypto has dulled memories of a painful market rout in 2022 that exposed fraud and other risky practices and led to the collapse of platforms including Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange.
The chequered history was on display on Monday too, when the woman who dubbed herself the “Crocodile of Wall Street” and “Razzlekhan” in rap videos was ordered to serve 18 months behind bars for helping her hacker husband launder crypto he stole from the Bitfinex exchange. The stolen Bitcoin is now valued in the billions of dollars.
Trump used to be a crypto skeptic but changed tack after digital-asset firms spent heavily during election campaigning to promote their interests. The president-elect now has his own crypto projects. The likelihood of a comprehensive US crypto bill passing in 2025 has risen to about 70%, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Government Analyst Nathan Dean wrote in a note.
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