Are More Gains Ahead for Crypto?

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By Nicholas Larsen, International Banker

Almost exactly one month to the day following the re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, the price of bitcoin achieved the holy grail when it soared past the $100,000 mark on December 4. It was a major milestone for the world’s leading cryptocurrency, with the price having surged by around 45 percent during that month. What’s more, bitcoin’s ascent has not simply stopped at 100k—far from it. Further rallies in 2025 saw it reach an all-time high just shy of $110,000 on January 20. And with institutional demand for crypto seen as only starting to ramp up, 2025 could well witness bitcoin eclipse even more landmark pricing levels before too long.

During the first half of 2024, however, one might have been forgiven for being sceptical over the possibility that bitcoin would reach the hallowed six-figure mark before the end of the year. Indeed, the January-June period experienced largely rangebound trading, with the price mostly oscillating between $60,000 and $70,000 before a dip in prices in the third quarter (Q3) saw the digital asset spend much of its time below this range.

But with a pronounced run-up in the weeks prior to the US election—partly on the gradually increasing likelihood of a Trump victory—bitcoin began its ascent. The cryptocurrency was trading at around $67,000 on November 5, the day of the election. And when the former president of the 2016-20 term sealed a second victory, the price of bitcoin immediately skyrocketed, extending its gains over the ensuing weeks to reach the key $100,000 threshold in early December.

Much of the world celebrated the achievement, one that resulted in bitcoin reaching an outstanding $2.1-trillion market capitalisation. “This also places Bitcoin firmly on the very short list of just seven assets or companies that have achieved more than 2 trillion dollars in market capitalisation, the rest being gold and tech giants NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon,” Richard Teng, chief executive officer of Binance in Dubai, observed at the time. “With talks of a US Strategic Bitcoin reserve and more companies adding bitcoin to their corporate treasuries, we are on the precipice of true mainstream global adoption.”

It wasn’t just within the crypto space that bitcoin was being hailed. The traditional-finance industry also had much to say about the $100,000 achievement—a sign of how far cryptocurrencies have come over the last 16 years or so in terms of legitimacy. “At the end of the day, it’s just a number…but the reality is we’ve been able to get to this level because the industry has become institutionalised this year particularly—and that’s mostly the ETF inflows,” Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, said. “Roughly 3 percent of the total supply of Bitcoins that will ever exist have been purchased in 2024 by institutional money.”

Indeed, bitcoin’s success has involved a perfect storm of bullish factors, with a massive wave of institutional adoption emerging at a time of declining inflation and interest rates, seismically favourable political and regulatory changes incoming with Trump’s return to the US presidency, and the explosive impact of complementary technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI)—all of which combined to send the bitcoin price to the heavens during the final months of the year. “The fourth quarter of 2024 will be remembered as one of the most important in crypto’s history,” said Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise Asset Management, one of the world’s largest crypto-index fund managers. “It was, to my mind, the quarter when crypto officially ‘crossed the chasm,’ moving from outsider status fully into the mainstream.”

As for the price trajectory in 2025, much will depend on the size of those corporate and institutional appetites for bitcoin et al. over the coming months. At this stage, several major players are accumulating large volumes of the digital asset, having steadily boosted their exposures since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the first 11 bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States on January 10, 2024.

Almost exactly one year after that landmark approval, the world’s largest investment manager, BlackRock, was purchasing a substantial $662 million worth of bitcoin for its ETF—its largest single acquisition of 2025 thus far—to bring the total acquisition of its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) to 559,262 bitcoins (BTC). The trust, which only launched in January 2024, had already surpassed the firm’s iShares Gold Trust in net assets by October 2024, underlining the phenomenal scale and speed at which institutional demand for bitcoin has grown.

Outside of the traditional-finance industry, moreover, MicroStrategy has garnered much attention as the biggest corporate holder of bitcoin. Recently renamed to just Strategy, the software firm’s founder, Michael Saylor, has made frequent headlines due to his 2020 decision to make bitcoin the company’s primary treasury reserve. This has resulted in heavy buying of the digital currency, and in the last year, that buying has only become more aggressive, with Saylor saying he expected bitcoin to continue rallying. “We are going to Mars,” he recently remarked.

According to the Financial Times, the six months leading to early February saw Strategy’s share-price gains even outstrip those of bitcoin itself, while its $87-billion market capitalisation as of February 5 was nearly double the value of its bitcoin holdings. “It also had $46mn in cash and cash equivalents at the end of September,” the Financial Times article also observed. “Saylor too has accelerated his company’s Bitcoin purchases and in November laid out an ambitious three-year goal to raise $42 billion in debt and equity to fund more buying.”

A separate report from Reuters, moreover, calculated that Strategy had completed $20 billion of this capital plan and held about 471,107 bitcoins with a market value of $46 billion as of February 2. “The company bought 218,887 bitcoins for $20.5 billion in the quarter, marking Strategy’s largest ever increase in quarterly bitcoins holdings,” Reuters reported on February 6.

It should also be highlighted that bitcoin’s bullishness is not only being supported by the bulk buying of such industrial heavyweights as BlackRock and Strategy. There is also the not-so-small matter of the return to the White House of Donald Trump, who many have dubbed as the “first crypto president”. Having indicated repeatedly on the campaign trail that he would implement a much more crypto-friendly regulatory regime, investors are widely expecting the bitcoin price to extend its gains further this year in response.

For example, the SEC under Trump has already rescinded Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121, a rule that subjected cryptocurrencies to strict capital requirements and forced US banks to treat bitcoin and other digital assets as liabilities on their balance sheets. As such, banks were discouraged from acquiring bitcoin beyond offering ETFs and trading crypto derivatives, and they were thus exposed to much greater financial and regulatory risks from offering crypto services.

The SEC’s annulment of this rule, however, has made it easier for US firms and financial institutions to deal in crypto. “Bye, bye, SAB 121! It’s not been fun,” SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce posted on X following the decision. The new administration has asked Peirce to lead a new “crypto task force” within the SEC, which is aimed at “developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets”.

Trump’s choice to head the SEC—the pro-crypto former SEC Commissioner Paul S. Atkins—further underscores the president’s positivity towards the asset class. His promise to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” has undoubtedly buoyed prices in the space in recent weeks.

All this means that bitcoin could enjoy astronomical gains in the months ahead. Investment firm Charles Schwab has put a $1-million price tag on the cryptocurrency should it receive the appropriate regulatory support. And Deutsche Bank analyst Marion Laboure recently wrote that the Trump Administration’s pro-crypto agenda would enable the current bull market to continue, with the presidential backing being key for the “continuation of crypto’s golden era”.

Even Larry Fink has openly suggested that an unprecedented rally could soon unfold. “There was a conversation: should we have a 2 percent allocation? Should we have a 5 percent allocation?” BlackRock’s chief executive officer disclosed during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on January 22. “If everybody adopted that conversation, it would be $500,000, $600,000, $700,000 for Bitcoin.”

According to Franklin Templeton, meanwhile, bitcoin will solidify its position this year as a global financial asset that acts as a digital store of value, accelerated by sovereign and institutional adoptions. The asset-management firm projected that strategic BTC reserves would be added by several nations. “Overall, 2025 will mark a shift from speculation to utility, as crypto’s foundational technologies become integral to global financial and operational systems,” it also noted in its “Digital Assets: 2025 Crypto Outlook”. “Stakeholders should watch regulatory developments, institutional moves, and advancements in AI-crypto convergence to navigate this dynamic landscape.”