Bitcoin hits $100,000 for the first time

Bitcoin has embarked on a wild rally since the US presidential election.

Bitcoin hit $100,000 for the first time ever on Wednesday night, reaching the coveted six-figure milestone as investors fuel a red-hot rally since Donald Trump’s election win earlier this month.

The coin traded at $100,400 around 9:30 p.m. ET and continued climbing in the minutes after the $100,000 mark. Two hours later, it was trading around $102,700.

The token had approached the milestone last month before dropping back down as investors took profits and struggled to clear the important psychological resistance level.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency has climbed steadily since Trump won the election, rising from just under $70,000 on Election Day to $100,000 in just over two weeks — and analysts have predicted it could keep going higher.

Standard Chartered said the crypto could rally to $125,000 by the end of the year in a note earlier this fall. Piper Sandler’s chief market technician, Craig Johnson, said he saw bitcoin headed toward $130,000 in an interview with CNBC last month.

Meanwhile, MicroStrategy chairman and bitcoin bull Michael Saylor said his long-term forecast is for the token to hit $13 million by 2045.

The price of bitcoin is up 133% year-to-date.

The latest Trump-related development to push bitcoin higher was Trump’s nomination of Paul Atkins to run the Securities and Exchange Commission. Atkins is widely viewed as pro-crypto and cochairs the Chamber of Digital Commerce’s Token Alliance, an industry-led initiative to represent the sector. If confirmed, he would replace Gary Gensler, who has taken a more aggressive approach to regulating crypto.

The market has also cheered developments, such as reports that the President-elect could appoint a “crypto czar” in the White House. Bloomberg reported that Trump could create a new position to guide the market.

Meanwhile, Senator Cynthia Lummis reignited the market’s excitement over one of Trump’s more specific campaign promises — the creation of a national bitcoin reserve. The Wyoming senator said the Federal Reserve should sell some of its 1970s-era gold stash to buy bitcoin, thereby avoiding having to print any new money to do so.

Crypto billionaire Mike Novogratz said recently that Trump represented a “paradigm shift” for industry regulation. While he predicted the coin would undergo a correction and pull back after hitting $100,000, he said it would eventually continue to rally.

“The entire cabinet almost owns bitcoin, and are proponents of digital assets,” Novogratz said of the incoming administration. “The people around that table are very pro this space. They’re pro-innovation, they’re pro-digital assets, they’re pro-bitcoin,” he added.

Saylor, who transformed his software company into a massive bitcoin holding company, said Republicans taking control of the White House and Congress in January would be a tailwind for the crypto industry.

“The red wave converted headwinds into tailwinds. Instead of a 20% headwind, it becomes a 20% tailwind. I would be more bullish based upon the red wave,” Saylor told CNBC in a recent interview.

Cathie Wood, the CEO of investment manager ARK Invest and a longtime crypto bull, praised Atkins on a Wednesday night X post.

“Even after breaking through $100,000, bitcoin still is in early innings,” she said in a post on X, adding that her firm “believes that bitcoin is a much bigger idea than gold!”