Bitcoin reached a new record high on Thursday, surpassing $97,000 for the first time, fueled by growing expectations that US president-elect Donald Trump will push forward measures to ease regulation of cryptocurrencies.
At 10:35 AM IST, Bitcoin's price hit $97,532, with analysts predicting that the $100,000 milestone could soon be within reach.
The cryptocurrency's price has more than doubled this year and is up about 40% in the two weeks since Trump was voted in as the next US president and a slew of pro-crypto lawmakers were elected to Congress.
More than $4 billion has streamed into US listed bitcoin exchange-traded funds since the election. This week, there was a strong debut for options on BlackRock's ETF, with call options - bets on the price going up - more popular than puts.
Meanwhile, other major cryptocurrencies also saw gains, including Ethereum (up 1.1%), Solana (up 2.8%), XRP (up 3.2%), Cardano (up 1.4%), Chainlink (up 14%), and Bitcoin Cash (up 14.1%).
In the last 24 hours, the market cap of Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, rose to $1.925 trillion. Bitcoin's dominance is currently 60.3%, according to CoinMarketCap. BTC volume in the last 24 hours surged 12% to $84.16 billion.
