REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/Illustration/File Photo
After the triumph of Republican Donald Trump in the US, bitcoin has not stopped rising and this Sunday it set a new record by reaching USD 80,000. As soon as the election was over, the cryptocurrency had already managed to exceed USD 75,000.
Around 10:30 in the morning, Argentina time, the main crypto species was trading around USD 79,800, with an increase of 4.6% in the last 24 hours, according to the Coinmarketcap site, which follows the prices of 9,937 different cryptocurrencies. In this way, the capitalization of bitcoin was close to 1.58 trillion dollars, equivalent to just under 58% of the total of almost 10,000 cryptocurrencies surveyed by the portal.
Then it reached its historical record, when it reached USD 81,054.70 (at 7 p.m. in Argentina its price was around $80,400 per unit).
In global perspective, today there are 19.78 million bitcoins in “circulation.” The last bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto calculated, would be issued in 2140, completing a total of 21 million units
It is worth remembering that last Wednesday, after Trump’s victory was confirmed, bitcoin surpassed the USD 75,000 barrier for the first time, reaching almost USD 75,400. It happens that during his campaign, the Republican promised to turn the US into the “world capital of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies”, denounced the regulatory “persecution” of the Joe Biden government and promised to promote pro-crypto legislation in the country. .
Additionally, he had announced in September that, together with his children and entrepreneurs, he would launch a decentralized finance platform called World Liberty Financial. As a sign, the now-elected president paid for hamburgers at a New York restaurant with bitcoin, which he celebrated as a “historic transaction.”
“The future of the crypto world has never looked brighter,” said Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com.
US President Donald Trump participated in the Bitcoin 2024 event held during July in Nashville, Tennessee (REUTERS/Kevin Wurm/File Photo)
Although at first the businessman had described cryptocurrencies as a scam, his change of position was reflected in recent months by participating, for example, in conferences such as Bitcoin 2024, where he committed to creating a national bitcoin reserve and firing the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, known for his regulatory approach towards digital assets.
The euphoria in the market also responds to the background of the Trump administration in the US: it made corporate tax cuts that brought more liquidity to the markets, encouraging investment in high-growth assets, such as cryptocurrencies.
In this context, the CEO and co-founder of Satoshi Tango, Matías Bari, told Infobae: “The rebound seems driven by several factors that have generated great enthusiasm in the sector. First, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates, which incentivized investors to look for value alternatives, thereby driving demand for digital assets. Additionally, a bill was recently introduced in the United States that proposes that the government acquire one million bitcoins over the next five years. This measure is designed to secure the position of the United States in the digital asset sector and has been received with enthusiasm by the market, which interprets it as institutional support for bitcoin.”
“With this combination of favorable monetary policies and signs of possible government support, institutional and retail investors have taken strong positions in bitcoin, anticipating a growth scenario in the medium and long term. “This has fueled a bullish trend that could still extend, although caution remains regarding how the new administration will balance crypto momentum with economic stability,” he added.
From Bitso they stated in a report: “Although the political scenario has a real impact, there are macroeconomic and structural conditions that have been acting for a long time and pushing bitcoin upwards. From a technical point of view, a new halving occurred in April, which reduces the circulating supply of bitcoin. In terms of adoption, 2024 has been a decisive year, since the listing of bitcoin ETFs has allowed the largest institutional investors in the world to invest in this asset, which until now was out of their reach due to regulatory issues. ”.
“In addition, from a macroeconomic point of view, the United States economy has shown signs of slowing inflation and has lowered the reference interest rate, which benefits risk assets in traditional markets and also crypto in general. . This encourages investors to migrate part of the investments to variable income assets to maintain profitability and bitcoin is receiving part of that influence,” they added.
Felipe Vallejo, director of Public Affairs at Bitso, said: “Despite the euphoria, it is important to know how the North American economy will develop in the coming months, in a global context of extremely important geopolitical situations. What does seem inevitable is that cryptocurrencies will become increasingly relevant in the economy on a global scale; that its access is free, democratic and that, in very few steps, anyone can buy, store, send or receive bitcoin. The real risk seems to be in being left out of this trend.”
The prehistory of bitcoin records that in November 2008 a person or group called “Satoshi Nakamoto” sent a message to the cryptography list of a specialized portal with the title “Bitcoin P2P E-Cash Paper”, explaining a new, decentralized system, of electronic money, free of intermediaries, regulation and supervision by governments or central banks.
Then, on January 3, 2009, the first 50 Bitcoins were “issued,” adding difficulty ranges for successive emissions of the first “cryptocurrency.”
Currently, there are 19.78 million bitcoins in “circulation” (codes in a kind of shared “ledger”). The last one, Nakamoto calculated, would be issued in the year 2140, completing a total of 21 million units.
“The Bitcoin narrative is motivating for the global cosmopolitan class, but also for those who aspire to join it or those interested in the most advanced technology. And it has a famous hero, Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of the currency, whose real identity is unknown,” says Robert Shiller, 2011 Nobel Prize winner in Economics in a book on “economic narratives.
The invisibility of its creator gives bitcoin a romantic aura. “No one has seen it, no one knows who the demiurge of the original crypto is. As a story, bitcoin is a gem,” Shiller concluded.
