After months of sitting in consolidation, Bitcoin has broken its record high for the second time this year, rising to over $84,000 at the time of writing. CNBC reports the main driving force behind Bitcoin’s resurgence is Donald Trump’s electoral win for the presidential seat.
Bitcoin broke its previous high ($73,794) on November 6, the day Trump won the election. Since then, Bitcoin has been on a nonstop bull run, charging to its all-time high of nearly $85,000 today. Bitcoin’s new high represents a 15% increase over its previous high of $73,000 and a 23% increase from its last major high of $69,000 in 2021.
This massive spike is purportedly a result of market euphoria following Trump’s presidential win. Trump is a big supporter of cryptocurrency, promising to make the United States the crypto capital of the world. He also purportedly insists that all Bitcoin should be mined in the country.
Trump’s endorsement of crypto, especially Bitcoin, is encouraging investors to pour more money into the cryptocurrency. Purportedly, net inflows for Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in the two days after the election were combined over $2 billion. ETFs appear to be the leading value-builder for the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies. BlackRock Bitcoin ETF is now more valuable than gold due to the election, making Bitcoin one of the most attractive asset builders moving forward.
The good news for PC gamers and graphics card buyers is that Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has not gotten any easier. As a result, we shouldn’t see another major GPU mining shortage in the foreseeable future. Bitcoin’s difficulty now requires dedicated ASICs to be profitable. Ethereum is in the same boat since the crypto moved to a proof-of-stake strategy that makes mining Ethereum with GPUs impossible.
Bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency that has seen price increases; virtually all of the popular cryptos have seen sudden spikes due to Trump’s electoral win. Ethereum is now at $3,300, representing a full $1,000 increase in less than a week. Another popular coin, Ada (Cardano), has increased in value by over 80% in the same timeframe.