$88,000. 90,000. 94,000. Since Donald Trump’s victory in the American presidential election, we have not stopped bitcoin. The famous cryptocurrency continues to record records and reached a historic peak on November 22. Donald Trump is seen as the catalyst for this excitement. He has, in fact, led a campaign very favorable to cryptocurrencies, promising, among other things, to replace Gary Gensler – a reviled figure among bitcoin fans – at the head of the financial markets supervisory body (the SEC), and to create a strategic reserve of bitcoins.
The re-elected American president is actually not the only driver of this boom. The year 2024 was already an exceptional vintage for bitcoin, explains Claire Balva, vice-president of Deblock: “There was the authorization of Bitcoin ETFs in January, then the drop in interest rates. This pushed the investors to diversify their assets and go into bitcoin. In March, the most famous cryptocurrency broke a four-year-old record, surpassing $69,000 for the first time.
The increase continued in April with the halving, an event taking place every four years, which accelerates the scarcity of bitcoin and which mechanically increases its price. It is therefore “reductive to say that Donald Trump changed the situation for bitcoin”, believes Stanislas Barthelemi, senior crypto manager at KPMG France.
Ministers, agency directors… the appointments decided by the American president will obviously have an influence on the prospects of the crypto industry. But in the United States, “it is the legislature which has control over regulatory issues,” recalls the expert. Companies across the Atlantic are currently operating within a vague legal framework. Unlike the European Union, where the Mica regulation sets specific obligations for companies, the American federal state has not yet ruled on the subject. It is the legislative choices in this area that will determine the weather for crypto.
The sector which knows this well had also created “Pacs” (private organization for financing elections) ad hoc and paid hundreds of millions of dollars to support the campaigns of candidates who were more attentive to their demands. A strategy that had some success. Stand With Crypto thus calculated that 276 representatives (members of the lower house of the American Parliament) and 22 senators with positions favorable to the sector had won a seat. Enough to facilitate the implementation of more advantageous laws and regulations for digital assets.
The revenge of the “alt-coins”?
Does this mean that the future of Bitcoin is assured? Nothing is less certain. The price of bitcoin has always responded to cyclical logic. When the current particularly positive cycle ends, the fall could be impressive. During the last bearish phase, in 2022, bitcoin went from $68,800 to $15,000 in a few months. “We never know how long the phases of euphoria last, it’s difficult to say what will happen in the long term,” recognizes Stanislas Barthelemi.
Bitcoin might not be the big winner in history. The hypothesis that the United States spends dollars to create a sort of national bitcoin reserve is more than uncertain, underlines THE Wall Street Journal. Furthermore, regulatory relaxation would have little concrete impact on bitcoin, it being considered as a commodity and not as a security by the SEC. It is to alt-coins (alternative cryptocurrencies to bitcoin) that gentler regulation would actually open up new perspectives. Which would simultaneously create increased competition for bitcoin.
A alt-coin is already taking advantage of the new political configuration in the United States: Dogecoin. This cryptocurrency, named in honor of an Internet star dog, was created by developers to humorously denounce speculation around cryptocurrencies. Their creation ended up overtaking them: Dogecoin was adopted by many crypto fans, first and foremost a certain… Elon Musk. The CEO of Tesla has, on several occasions, caused its valuation to jump by alluding to this cryptocurrency in tweets.
When Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk to head a ministry nicknamed Doge for “Department of Government Efficiency”, its value jumped again. Today, Dogecoin is the seventh largest cryptocurrency in the world by market capitalization, at over $55 billion. A trend that could continue as long as Elon Musk remains one of Donald Trump’s favorites.
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