LONDON: Bitcoin hit a record high above $109,000 on Monday as Donald Trump, who has announced plans to deregulate the cryptocurrency sector, prepares to be sworn in as US president.
Bitcoin surged to an all-time high of $109,241 before Trump’s inauguration ceremony, before falling back to $107,765.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency has soared since Trump won the presidential election in November, with Bitcoin surpassing $100,000 for the first time in early December.
That came after he named cryptocurrency backer Paul Atkins to head the U.S. securities regulator, reinforcing optimism that the new president will deregulate the sector.
Although he once called cryptocurrencies a “scam,” Trump changed his stance and was a leading advocate for them during his election campaign.
Over the weekend, it launched its own cryptocurrency, aptly called $TRUMP, sparking feverish buying that propelled its market cap to several billion dollars.
Meanwhile, Melania Trump also launched her own cryptocurrency on Sunday, which was trading at around $12.03, with a market capitalization of $1.9 billion, reported Reuters.
When Bitcoin reached the all-time high of $100,000, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform: “CONGRATULATIONS BITCOINERS!!! $100,000!!! YOU ARE WELCOME!!! Together we will make America great again new!”
Cryptocurrencies have made headlines since their creation, from their extreme volatility to the collapse of several giants of the sector, first and foremost the FTX exchange platform.
Bitcoin was designed in 2008 by a person or group writing under the name Satoshi Nakamoto.
It was presented as a way to break free from traditional financial institutions by establishing a decentralized platform for transactions.
Digital currency is created – or “mined” – as a reward when powerful computers solve complex problems to validate transactions made on a tamper-proof ledger known as the blockchain.
Bitcoin has long been criticized for being the currency of choice for making untraceable payments on the so-called dark web, a hidden part of the Internet used for criminal activity.
This asset has often been attacked for facilitating money laundering and enabling extortion via ransomware attacks.
Its carbon footprint has also come under scrutiny, as mining cryptocurrencies requires enormous amounts of energy.