By Rae Wee and Hannah Lang
(Reuters) – Bitcoin broke through the $90,000 level on Wednesday, as its rally showed no signs of easing on expectations that Donald Trump as U.S. president will be a boon for cryptocurrencies.
The world’s biggest cryptocurrency has become one of the most eye-catching movers in the week since the election and on Wednesday touched record highs. It was last up 5.49% at $93,158, marking a 32% rise since the Nov. 5 election.
Smaller peer ether has also risen 37% since election day, while dogecoin, an alternative, volatile token promoted by billionaire Trump-ally Elon Musk was up more than 150%.
Trump embraced digital assets during his campaign, promising to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and to accumulate a national stockpile of bitcoin.
It is unclear how or when that could happen but the possibility drove a speculative surge in crypto mining and trading stocks.
“Key areas to monitor include potential regulatory changes, increased institutional participation, and a rise in M&A activity,” said Carl Szantyr, managing partner of digital asset hedge fund Blockstone Capital.
“The new political landscape may bring clearer regulations for crypto assets and could prompt strategic developments, such as a national bitcoin reserve and growth in the mining sector.”
Software company and bitcoin investor MicroStrategy announced it had spent about $2 billion buying bitcoin between Oct. 31 and Nov. 10. Shares scaled a record high on Tuesday.
Crypto investors see an end to increased scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission under Trump. Trump, along with his sons, also announced a new crypto business, World Liberty Financial, in September.
“President Trump’s re-election would allow him to appoint a new chair of the SEC, an agency that has arguably been stifling the crypto industry via ongoing legal action and monetary penalties over the past ~3 years,” JPMorgan researchers said in a note Tuesday.
Funds tracking the spot price of bitcoin, including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, were up nearly 4% on Wednesday.
Shares in Coinbase, the largest publicly traded crypto exchange, were down 1.3%, while shares in bitcoin miners Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital Holdings were down 4.08% and 4.68%, respectively.
(Reporting by Rae Wee and Hannah Lang in New York, additional reporting by Federico Maccioni in Dubai; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Barbara Lewis)
