The News
The price of Bitcoin surpassed $100,000 on Wednesday for the first time, a milestone for the world’s most-accepted cryptocurrency.
The 16-year-old digital asset has experienced a meteoric rise this year; the latest rally followed US President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to replace the current chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who is seen as a villain in digital currency circles, with a crypto enthusiast. Bitcoin also saw a bump in its legitimacy after US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell compared it to gold at a New York Times summit on Wednesday.
SIGNALS
El Salvador’s Bukele posts $603 million crypto portfolio
As US President-elect Donald Trump took credit for Bitcoin’s milestone, saying “you’re welcome” for sending the currency above $100,000, El Savadorean President Nayib Bukele also celebrated: The millennial populist leader who once jokingly labeled himself the world’s “coolest dictator” is a long-time crypto champion. El Salvador began investing in Bitcoin in 2021, adopting it as legal tender to much criticism. But Bukele took a victory lap Wednesday, posting a screenshot of what appeared to be the country’s current balance of $603 million, a total gain of 117%. El Salvador’s success “could well create a breeding ground for more countries to follow its strategy,” the Spanish-language outlet CriptoNoticias wrote. But some nations, like Chile, have ruled out accumulating Bitcoin as a strategic reserve.
Bitcoin believers say they proved the naysayers wrong
Longtime Bitcoin believers are increasingly certain they have proven the naysayers wrong, basking in “an I-told-you-so glow,” Bloomberg wrote. “I probably have to buy Donald Trump a Christmas gift,” Bitcoin investor and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said. Traditional financial institutions have also started to embrace Bitcoin, CNBC noted: Fidelity and Invesco launched Bitcoin ETFs at the beginning of the year, and Charles Schwab’s incoming CEO said the company will enter spot crypto trading “when the regulatory environment changes, and we do anticipate that it will change.”