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Bitcoin has just reached its highest level since late spring, as several market conditions, including next week's US presidential election, impact the $1.4 trillion cryptocurrency.
President Trump will deliver the keynote address at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville in July.
important facts
Bitcoin rose about 3% on Tuesday at around 10:30 a.m. EDT, or 2:30 p.m. GMT, to a peak of $71,887, the token's highest price since May 21 (24 Bitcoin market price fluctuations are the most volatile (usually measured in GMT).
This brought Bitcoin's gain in October to 11%, outpacing the 1% rise in the S&P 500, the major US stock index, this month.
Other major digital assets rose on Tuesday, with Ethereum up 4% to a 10-day high of $2.637, Binance Coin up 2% to an eight-day high of $608, and Solana up 2%. The stock hit a three-month high of $182.
Stocks of companies involved in bitcoin mining, the energy-intensive process of unlocking bitcoins from digital blockchains, also rose. Shares of Core Scientific, Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms each rose on Tuesday, with each gaining at least 15% in October.
Why is Bitcoin going up?
The Bitcoin-led cryptocurrency rally is due to a combination of several factors. Investors such as hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones support policies by the government and presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump that economists predict will increase the national debt by trillions of dollars. Therefore, they are calling for Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation. And after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates last month, skeptics believe that monetary policy is not equipped to correct inflation. The price of gold, a more traditional safe-haven asset, has also soared, with gold up 6% since the Sept. 18 interest rate cut. The rise in Bitcoin prices comes as Trump, who has previously been skeptical of Bitcoin, has positioned himself as a pro-Bitcoin candidate and is calling for a “strategic national Bitcoin stockpile,” leading to market bets on a Trump victory. This is consistent with the odds increasing. Bernstein research also shows continued upward pressure from the Spot Bitcoin ETF, which was approved by U.S. regulators in January and has attracted billions of dollars in inflows into the digital asset from institutional investors. It is said that
big number
66 billion dollars. This is the amount of Bitcoin held by the Spot Bitcoin ETF, run by traditional asset managers BlackRock and Fidelity, as well as more digitally focused players like Grayscale. That's about 5% of the market.
Main background
Bitcoin is by far the most valuable crypto token, with a total market value more than four times that of the next largest digital asset, Ethereum, which is the third largest crypto token excluding stablecoins. That's more than three times that of a certain Binance coin. Tether. Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $73,750 in March, up more than 300% from its lows in late 2022 during the “crypto winter.” This winter has seen a flurry of high-profile bankruptcies of once-industry giants swapping FTX and shaking confidence.
