The price of bitcoin hit an all-time high this weekend, a rally that started shortly after Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 election.
Major indexes showed bitcoin’s price hitting more than $82,000 Monday morning. That’s up from $68,000 last Tuesday, Election Day in the U.S.
Year to date, bitcoin has gained more than 85%, though most of those gains came in the early part of the year. From March to November, the price has been mostly confined to a range of $50,000 to $70,000.
Trump’s election has been heralded by some as a positive sign for the prices of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. He has promised to quash the aggressive stance taken by the current leadership of the Securities and Exchange Commission against cryptocurrency firms and products it has deemed potentially harmful to investors.
Trump has also signaled interest in creating a strategic U.S. reserve of bitcoin and has many crypto-friendly advisers to his incoming administration, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who last week announced that he was incorporating bitcoin into his asset management service.
Investors may also be responding to fears of inflation resurfacing under Trump, after months of price increases settling in at a more subdued pace. Some investors believe that Trump’s following through on some of his campaign proposals will ultimately lead to higher prices.
“The likelihood of a pickup in inflation just got even higher — tax cuts, the deportation of immigrants, and tariffs are all likely to push up spending, wages and the price of basic goods,” Noelle Acheson, author of a newsletter covering cryptocurrency news, wrote this weekend. “Leaving the political impact of that aside for a second (it could be harsh), it adds to the tailwinds propelling crypto and gold.”
Other assets in the cryptocurrency world have also been rallying. Shares in Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, were set to rise about 14% Monday. Robinhood, the app-based trading platform that allows for crypto trades, was also set to hit an all-time high.
And Dogecoin, a “meme” cryptocurrency that has mostly become a vehicle for pure investor speculation, has soared more than 160% over the past month.