BTC aims at $90,000. Is it still far from $100,000?

Author: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

Since Trump's victory, the crypto market has been advancing by leaps and bounds. As of 10:45 am Beijing time on November 12, BTC was at $87,699.41, up 7.6% in 24 hours. Other cryptocurrencies also rose, with ETH at $3,309.23, up 3.3% in 24 hours; Solana at $217.20, up 3.2% in 24 hours; and Dogecoin at $0.3529, up 20% in 24 hours.

What are the driving factors in the current crypto market? How long will it take for BTC to reach the $100,000 mark?

1. What are the driving factors in the crypto market

1. Trump's victory

Seemingly having tasted the sweetness brought by cryptocurrencies and NFTs, Trump's crypto stance shifted from "rejection" in his first term to "support" before this election. As early as July this year, at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference held in Nashville, Trump made a series of shocking remarks at the conference:

will ensure that the United States becomes the cryptocurrency capital of the earth and the world's Bitcoin superpower; on the first day of taking office, he will fire the current chairman of the U.S. SEC, Gray Gensler. During his tenure as President of the United States, he will never launch a CBDC; he promised to maintain a "national strategic bitcoin reserve" and "never sell" bitcoins seized by the government; he hopes that bitcoin will be mined, minted and manufactured in the United States...

For details, please refer to the Golden Finance article "Review of Trump's Bitcoin Conference Speech: Ensuring that the United States Becomes a Bitcoin Superpower"

According to the Washington Post, after winning the election, President Trump is preparing for the US government to take a more relaxed stance on cryptocurrencies. He is looking for candidates for key positions that are friendly to the crypto industry, and his senior advisers are consulting crypto executives on potential changes in federal policies. Initial discussions focused on a range of financial regulators, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. According to five people familiar with the matter, Trump advisers considered letting current regulatory officials, former federal officials and financial industry executives take important leadership positions, many of whom have publicly expressed their support for cryptocurrencies. They warned that the discussion process is still in its early stages and the list of candidates is still changing. Trump will appoint cabinet members who support cryptocurrency to fulfill his promise to make the United States the "global cryptocurrency capital." The Trump team even considered listing Robinhood Chief Legal and Compliance Officer Dan Gallagher as a candidate for the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Researchers at TD Cowen wrote in a report on Monday that bipartisan crypto legislation covering stablecoins and market structure will be more likely to be passed during Trump's second term.

Paxos co-founder and CEO Charles Cascarilla also pointed out that "Trump's election has created a real opportunity for the golden age of cryptocurrency, and people believe that all suppressed demand may be released and turn the United States from a laggard in the crypto industry to a leader."

In addition, Trump's move not only pushed BTC to new highs, but other cryptocurrencies also rose gratifyingly. Bloomberg pointed out: Because people are enthusiastic about the prospects of the cryptocurrency industry under the leadership of President-elect Trump, it has triggered a wave of speculative bets. These include DOGE, which has risen about 50% in the past five days; the most eye-catching performance is ADA from the Cardano blockchain, which has risen more than 60% in the same period, which may be driven by the network's founder Charles Hoskinson discussing plans to cooperate with Washington lawmakers in a podcast. In addition, tokens related to Polygon, Cosmos, Solana and Algorand have all risen more than Bitcoin's five-day increase of about 7% and hit a record high. Caroline Bowler, CEO of digital asset exchange BTC Markets Pty, said: "Rising tides lift all boats, and the prosperity of Bitcoin has quickly spread to altcoins; the entire industry is expected to be a net beneficiary of the Trump administration."

2.USDT issuance

According to Whale Alert monitoring, Tether Treasury minted 2 billion USDT on Ethereum at around 1:07 am on November 12, Beijing time. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino commented that this is an authorized but unissued transaction, which means it will be used as inventory for the next issuance request and on-chain exchange.

Previously, from November 8 to 10, Tether issued a total of 4 billion USDT.

Since USDT is pegged to the US dollar, each additional USDT will be backed by $1. The additional USDT is equivalent to the amount of OTC funds entering the market, which will obviously benefit the crypto market. On the other hand, Tether's approach also reflects the investment needs of investors. Under the dual influence of the entry of OTC funds and the high enthusiasm of investors, the prosperity of the crypto market is not surprising.

3. Institutions rush into the market

Recently, many large institutions are optimistic about cryptocurrencies and have taken practical actions.

On November 11, the founder of MicroStrategy tweeted that he might continue to increase his holdings of BTC. Subsequently, market news pointed out that MicroStrategy had acquired 27,200 BTC at a price of approximately $2.03 billion, at a price of approximately $74,463 per Bitcoin, and achieved a BTC return of 7.3% so far in the quarter and a BTC return of 26.4% so far in the year. As of November 10, 2024, MicroStrategy holds 279,420 BTC at a price of approximately $42,692 per Bitcoin, with an acquisition price of approximately $11.9 billion.

Crypto mining chip design company Nano Labs recently announced that it would accept Bitcoin as payment for its goods and services through a business account on Coinbase, and its stock price rose slightly. Nano Labs said that as the "adoption of cryptocurrencies continues to grow, especially among businesses seeking efficient and secure cross-border transactions," it is "taking a proactive position in the evolving digital economy."   According to Nano Labs, the adoption of Bitcoin will provide "greater payment flexibility," but it did not provide any details on whether it intends to keep cryptocurrencies on its balance sheet.

Since Musk has always been a crypto enthusiast, Tesla holds a large amount of Bitcoin. According to data disclosed by Arkham on the X platform, Elon Musk's Tesla's Bitcoin holdings are worth $1 billion.

Asset management company Bernstein also urged investors to increase their investment in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies "as soon as possible."

In addition, according to the Bitcoin Office in El Salvador, El Salvador is still implementing the "daily increase of 1 BTC plan". Coincidentally, according to Arkham monitoring, the value of the 12,568 bitcoins held by the Bhutanese government exceeded US$1 billion.

4. Cryptocurrency US stocks rose sharply

According to Golden Finance on November 12, the three major US stock indexes closed up collectively, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.69%, the S&P 500 up 0.1%, and the Nasdaq up 0.06%; all continued to hit record highs. Tesla rose by about 9%, and its total market value surpassed TSMC to rise to the seventh place in the US stock market. Cryptocurrency concept stocks rose sharply, Canaan Technology (CAN.O) rose 41%, MicroStrategy (MSTR.O) rose 25%, Coinbase (COIN.O) rose 19%, and Trump Media Technology Group (DJT.O) rose 4.7%.

When the U.S. stock market performs well, investors' risk appetite will increase, and they are more willing to invest in the riskier cryptocurrency market. And the rise of crypto U.S. stocks will further boost investors' confidence in entering the crypto market.

5. Investor enthusiasm

Market observers said that the surge in Google searches for Bitcoin after Trump won the election, coupled with the record high price of Bitcoin, showed that retail investors' interest was rekindled and a wave of new buyers were ready to enter the cryptocurrency market. Solv Protocol co-founder Ryan Chow said that Trump's victory in the election was "the main catalyst to start the next bull market." Crypto macro analyst Noelle Acheson said: "In general, retail investors tend to be latecomers because they are influenced by price-related headlines and widespread social attention. Due to the absence of retail investors, market observers can speculate that the crypto cycle is in its early stages, and when retail investors start to flock in, we will know that we are close to the peak of hype."

2. Is BTC far from the $100,000 mark?

The $11,000 target is very reasonable

Jag Kooner, head of derivatives at cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, said that although it is difficult to predict the price of Bitcoin, the goal of reaching $100,000 in a few months "doesn't seem too far-fetched", adding: "Given the bullish momentum, coupled with the fact that the economy has avoided a recession, we expect Bitcoin to have limited downside now. This (the $100,000 target) looks very reasonable." 

James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, also said that Bitcoin's rise to $100,000 - which means there is still 33% room for growth - "is now possible" because Trump's victory and Republican control of the Senate may make it easier to promote "the expected relaxed regulatory framework", and $100,000 Bitcoin "doesn't sound so unreasonable" because its market value is equivalent to "only 10% of the gold market share". He believes that the main catalysts for Bitcoin's future are changes in SEC leadership, cryptocurrency-friendly regulation and further adoption of cryptocurrencies by large companies. He added that another catalyst could be a rate cut by the Federal Reserve.

Fadi Aboualfa, head of research at Copper.co, said that by the time Trump takes office as president on January 20, 2025, the price of Bitcoin is likely to reach $100,000. After the news of Trump's victory in the election, Aboualfa said in written comments to CNBC: "For Bitcoin, it is worth remembering that Trump witnessed two historical high cycles during his presidency from 2016 to 2020. Although these gains came against the backdrop of a weaker dollar, which is different from the current environment of a stronger dollar. However, given that the Bitcoin spot ETF currently holds about 1.1 million Bitcoins, the momentum in the coming months may remain positive."

CNBC said that the price of Bitcoin may reach $100,000 before the presidential inauguration.

2. Bullish outlook

Geoff Kendrick of Standard Chartered Bank predicts that Bitcoin will continue to rise until the end of this year, "easily reaching" $100,000 before certain Bitcoin options expire on December 27. “I predict $125,000 by the end of the year, which is the next level, although I noticed that after the 2016 election, a lot of Trump-related transactions peaked around the inauguration on January 20th… So if Bitcoin doesn’t reach $125,000 by December 31st, I think it will reach it by January 20th.”

 Kendrick further predicted that given the recent gains of Ethereum and Solana, a rise in Bitcoin prices could “benefit all investors” and some tokens could outperform Bitcoin. Kendrick wrote: "It seems inevitable that SOL will hit a new all-time high by the end of this year (the all-time high in November 2021 was $260). ETH's new all-time high ($4,866 in November 2021) may not be achieved until about the inauguration. Overall, we think these assets will continue to rise, but SOL may perform best among them."

Bernstein analysts issued a bullish report after the US election, encouraging investors to increase their exposure to the crypto industry as soon as possible. Gautam Chhugani, head of research at Bernstein, said that the Trump administration is expected to adopt pro-crypto policies or appoint a new SEC chairman, which may bring a friendlier regulatory environment to the industry. The report recommends that investors pay attention to spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, publicly listed Bitcoin mining companies, businesses holding Bitcoin, and crypto trading platforms such as Robinhood and Coinbase. In addition, Bernstein expects Bitcoin to reach $200,000 by the end of 2025, and recommends investors to buy major digital assets such as BTC, ETH, and SOL.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on the X platform: "World (also known as Worldcoin) has made amazing progress in the past year. I am very proud of the team, especially the leadership of Alex Blania! A rare combination of vision and execution. Overall, I am confident in the bright future of cryptocurrency!"

III. Conclusion

Since the birth of Bitcoin 16 years ago, the Bitcoin market has been ups and downs. After experiencing many "death" predictions, the trend has become more and more eye-catching. At present, Bitcoin has surpassed silver to become the 8th largest asset in the world by market value. "What doesn't kill me will make me stronger." Bitcoin is about to break through the $90,000 mark. Is it far from the goal of $100,000?