(London) Bitcoin broke its record on Monday, surpassing the US$109,000 mark a few hours before the inauguration of Donald Trump, who promises policies favorable to the sector and opportunely launched his own digital currency last weekend.
Posted at 6:45 a.m.
Lucie LEQUIER
Agence France-Presse
The leading digital currency by capitalization suddenly rose around 1:30 a.m. EST until reaching a high of US$109,241.14. It was trading at US$103,784.81 mid-afternoon Monday.
In search of credibility, bitcoin is now evolving to heights far from being imagined 16 years ago, when it was created, and well beyond its value on November 5, the day of the presidential election, when it hovered around US$69,000.
But for this controversial market, the return to the White House of Donald Trump, especially with Elon Musk at his side, is seen as a godsend.
Because after calling cryptocurrencies a scam during his first term, the new president finally changed his tune during his second campaign – partly financed by the sector.
The Republican also launched his own digital currency on the night of Friday to Saturday, with dazzling success: trading around US$7 shortly after their launch, the 200 million “Trump” tokens rose to around US$75 each, before oscillating around US$54 on Monday.
Cryptocurrency Melania
Speculators interpreted this launch “as a sign that Trump’s promise to make the United States the world capital of bitcoin” and cryptocurrencies “will be honored”. They immediately rushed to bitcoin, “fearing not to benefit from this wave of euphoria”, underlines Susannah Streeter, analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
Donald Trump presented his new currency as a “memecoin”, a cryptocurrency with no economic or transactional utility, riding on popular enthusiasm around a personality or a viral phenomenon on the internet – and often seen as a purely speculative.
-Before the creation of this digital currency, entrepreneurs associated with Donald Trump had put online, in mid-October, a cryptocurrency platform called World Liberty Financial.
On Sunday, Melania Trump also launched her own cryptocurrency, called Melania.
The 47e President of the United States took credit in December for bitcoin crossing the symbolic bar of US$100,000. “IT’S NO MATTER!” ! ! », he commented on his Truth Social network.
“No framework”
Last weekend, Bloomberg reported that the creation of a national strategic bitcoin reserve, which would encompass the government’s existing holdings in this crypto, is indeed being considered.
Such a project “could accelerate the institutional adoption” of bitcoin, underlines John Plassard, expert at Mirabaud, interviewed by AFP.
“However, challenges such as the volatility” of prices, which fluctuate strongly, the challenges in terms of “cybersecurity and the absence of a proven economic framework for its integration still hinder full generalization,” he underlines.
Bitcoin was born in 2008 from a libertarian dream: to escape the control of financial institutions by relying on a technology, the “blockchain”, which makes it possible to record transactions in a decentralized and tamper-proof manner using a network of computers. all over the world.
Over the years, bitcoin, like other cryptocurrencies, has been involved in several financial scandals, as a currency favored by hackers or to monetize illicit activities.
Today he is in search of respectability. In 2021, El Salvador was the first country to adopt it as legal tender, without convincing the population, followed by the Central African Republic. Some merchants accept it as a means of payment, as Elon Musk did for his Tesla cars before turning around.
