(Nov 12): Bitcoin’s record-breaking rally took the digital asset close to US$90,000 (RM399,107) for the first time and lifted the overall value of the crypto market above its pandemic-era peak as traders bet on a boom under President-elect Donald Trump.

The largest token has jumped about 32% since the US election on Nov 5, hitting an all-time high of US$89,599 on Tuesday. The original cryptocurrency changed hands at US$87,063 as of 7.02am in New York.

Trump has vowed friendlier crypto rules and his Republican Party is tightening its grip on Congress, boosting his odds of pushing through his agenda. Trump’s other pledges include setting up a strategic Bitcoin stockpile and fostering domestic mining of the token to make the US the crypto capital of the planet.

His stance is a sharp break from a Securities & Exchange Commission crackdown on the divisive industry under President Joe Biden. The change of tone has energized speculative buying of large and small tokens alike, raising the value of digital assets overall to about US$3.1 trillion, CoinGecko data show.

Bitcoin is in “beast mode”, Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group, wrote in a note. “The question for traders not already set is whether there is still room to chase this red-hot play or wait for a slight retracement and for some of the heat to come out of the impulsive trend.”

Investors are lining up bets in the options market that Bitcoin will pass US$100,000 as soon as the end of the year, according to data from the Deribit exchange. Open interest — or outstanding contracts — for CME Group Inc futures for Bitcoin and second-ranked Ether scaled records on Monday, a sign of growing engagement by US institutional investors.

Meanwhile, software firm MicroStrategy Inc — the largest publicly traded corporate holder of Bitcoin outside the exchange-traded fund sector — bought about 27,200 Bitcoin for some US$2 billion between Oct 31 and Nov 10.

Traders for now are paying little heed to questions such as how quickly Trump will implement his agenda or whether a strategic stockpile is a realistic step. The febrile mood is illustrated by a recent doubling in the price of Dogecoin, a meme-crowd favourite promoted by Trump supporter Elon Musk.

Bitcoin is up roughly 110% in 2024, helped by robust demand for dedicated US ETFs and interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. The token’s rise exceeds the returns from the likes of global stocks and gold. Turnover in BlackRock Inc’s US$39 billion iShares Bitcoin Trust reached an all-time high on Monday.

Fairlead Strategies LLC technical analyst Katie Stockton in her latest research note said “it would be natural to see a period of digestion after such a steep run-up” in Bitcoin, recommending a “short-term neutral bias”.

Digital-asset companies spent heavily during the US election campaign to boost candidates viewed as favourable to their interests. Against that backdrop, Trump did an about-face, becoming a supporter of an industry he once labelled a scam.

His backing turned Bitcoin into one of a range of so-called Trump trades. Others include US stocks and the dollar, both of which have also been advancing given Trump’s focus on domestic economic growth, tax cuts and protectionist tariffs.

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