Bitcoin Tops $100K for First Time After Trump's SEC Pick

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Facts

• The value of a single Bitcoin rose beyond $100K for the first time in the cryptocurrency's history on Thursday before subsiding slightly.^[1][2]
• The fresh rally in Bitcoin's price came hours after Pres.-elect Donald Trump named Paul Atkins, CEO of Patomak Partners and a former SEC commissioner — seen as a cryptocurrency advocate — as his pick to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).^[3]
• While Bitcoin wasn't the first online currency when it first appeared in 2008 — coming in the form of a white paper circulated by someone calling themselves Satoshi Nakamoto, an individual or group of individuals whose real identity remains a mystery — the peer-to-peer electronic cash technology has since had a trajectory, unlike other cryptocurrencies.^[4]
• After it first became publicly available in 2009, its value crossed the $1 mark in 2011 — rising as high as nearly $30 a few months later, before crashing back down to $5 by the end of the year. However, in 2013, its dollar value per unit propelled past $100, $200, and $1K, eventually rising beyond $10K by 2019.^[5]
• It has since experienced high volatility — periods in which it had record gains, surpassing $20K, $40K, $60K — while at times its price moved as swiftly the other way. Two days after Trump's election win, it reached a new high of $76,999 and has continued to trend upward since.^[5]
• During the presidential campaign, Trump reversed his previous skepticism and vowed to make the US 'the Bitcoin superpower of the world.' Besides Bitcoin, other US shares and indexes posted record highs while the US dollar posted its biggest gain in eight years.^[6]

Sources: ^[1]Al Jazeera, ^[2]Google Finance, ^[3]Associated Press, ^[4]Bernard Marr, ^[5]Investopedia and ^[6]BBC News.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Associated Press. Trump's announcement Wednesday that he intended to nominate Atkins, an open advocate of cryptocurrencies, to head the SEC — alongside Trump's promises on the election campaign — further buoyed hopes that there would be more a favorable regulatory environment when it came to cryptocurrencies than the outgoing Democrat administration. That's why Bitcoin is having such a resurgence.
• Narrative B, as provided by Investopedia. While Bitcoin may be the best-performing cryptocurrency there is, the truth is it's also been one of the most volatile investments. While it has had some spectacular rises in value, it has also had some spectacular crashes as well. It's not clear whether it makes a good investment as it was designed to be a payment method in the first place.

Predictions