The price of bitcoin surged to a new record high this morning ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The cryptocurrency jumped nearly 7 per cent to beyond $108,000 a coin, tearing past the previous record.
The price of bitcoin has increased significantly since Trump’s election in November, breaking the $100,000 barrier in early December, and has remained around that mark since.
Now, investors have piled into bitcoin just hours before Trump’s inauguration amid expectations that the new President will continue to champion cryptocurrency.
Rocketing: Bitcoin has soared past its previous record today
Over the weekend, Trump and his wife Melania launched their own cryptocurrency ‘meme’ coins, suggesting his administration will continue to be bullish on crypto.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell said: ‘Pending more information on how Trump plans to achieve policy goals, certain investors have focused on the here and now, and that’s a world in which the new president embraces cryptocurrencies.
‘Bitcoin has gone bananas after Trump launched his own cryptocurrency on Friday. It’s got crypto fans fired up in hope that digital currencies will go mainstream.’
Trump has previously suggested that he might create a US strategic bitcoin reserve, telling CNBC: ‘We’re gonna do something great with crypto because we don’t want China or anybody else – not just China but others are embracing it – and we want to be the head.’
Trump’s plan could be to emulate the US’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the form of bitcoin. The token has a maximum total supply of 21million, with 19.9million already in existence.
However, with a limited supply of the coins, a US reserve of Bitcoin could make it more difficult for investors to trade.
Last year, Standard Chartered, set a bitcoin price target of $200,000 by the end of 2025.
The bank said: ‘Given the potential for further institutional flows in 2025, we remain comfortable with our end-2025 price level of around $200,000.
‘Greater-than-expected uptake by US retirement accounts/pension funds, global SWFs or a potential US strategic reserve fund would make us even more bullish.’
What will happen to bitcoin price in 2025 – experts predict whether it will hit $200k…
The price of Bitcoin has also edged higher in recent weeks as software firm MicroStrategy has bought into the cryptocurrency and is likely to become a constituent of the Nasdaq index. This would only further push up Bitcoin’s price.
MicroStrategy owns some 425,000 bitcoin, currently worth around $45billion, making it the largest corporate owner of the crypto and holder of around 2 per cent of the token’s total market value.
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