Bitcoin breaks the $100,000 barrier

And, after calling cryptocurrencies a scam in his first term (2017-2021), Trump changed his tone during his campaign, financed in part by groups in the sector. Now he vows to make the United States “the bitcoin capital of the world and cryptocurrencies.” As a result, bitcoin, which was worth just over $69,000 per unit on November 5, the day of the US elections, was sold on Thursday on the first exchanges on Asian stock exchanges for $102,700.

The revaluation is around 50% since the tycoon’s victory and more than 130% since the beginning of this year. The final push was Trump’s announcement Wednesday night of the Republican lawyer’s future appointment Paul Atkins, favorable to the development of cryptocurrencies, to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, the regulatory authority for financial markets, known as SEC.

Last year, Atkins publicly criticized SEC officials for not being more flexible with companies in the cryptocurrency sector and accused them of driving entrepreneurs away from the US market. «Paul has demonstrated his orientation in favor of regulation impregnated with common sense (…). “Also recognize that digital assets are crucial to making America even greater than it has ever been,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

Ex professed appointment

Atkins’ future appointment “has ignited the crypto community, reinforcing investor optimism in a more accommodating regulatory landscape” and “a lenient approach towards the booming digital asset market,” summarizes SPI analyst Stephen Innes. Asset Management.

The recent resignation of the until now president of the SEC, Gary Gensler, bete noire of the sector, had already boosted the price of digital currencies. Furthermore, information that Trump could create a cryptocurrency ministry or a strategic reserve of bitcoins in the United States also fuel optimism. «Could he be the president who allows cryptocurrencies to go mainstream? Will Americans be able to use them to pay their taxes? There is a greater chance of that happening,” says Kathleen Brooks, expert at broker XTB.

Many cryptocurrency-related companies saw their prices soar after the US election, such as service provider bitcoin MicroStrategy or the exchange platform Coinbase. Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency originally created as a joke and which Elon Musk fell in love with starting in 2019, has also caught the wave.

The billionaire was also appointed by Trump to head a new “government effectiveness commission,” whose acronym in English is Doge, the same as dogecoin, based on the viral image of a Japanese-bred dog.

In September 2021, El Salvador was the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as one of its legal currencies, but the cryptocurrency has not convinced the population.

A libertarian dream

Bitcoin was born in 2008 from a libertarian dream: escape from control of financial institutions. To achieve this, its mysterious creator, known only by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, relies on a technology, ‘blockchain’, which allows transactions in the currency to be recorded in a decentralized and unforgeable manner thanks to a network of computers spread throughout the world.

Although the operation was a success, bitcoin, like other cryptocurrencies, was involved in numerous financial scandals.

It is accused of being used for money laundering and is the preferred currency of hackers.

While other cryptocurrencies remain highly controversial, with extremely volatile prices, Bitcoin is gaining greater respectability.