Key Takeaways

• Bitcoin rose above $98,000 for the first time on Thursday.

• This marks a 46% increase since Donald Trump was announced as the winner of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
  

• Bitcoin-related stocks experienced the most trading volume in their history on Wednesday, with more than $50 billion in assets exchanging hands.

• Three more publicly traded companies have announced their intention to use bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset.

• Despite all this activity, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz says a correction in bitcoin's price is coming.

• This month, bitcoin also has gone from strongly correlated with gold to having an inverse correlation with the precious metal.

Bitcoin (BTCUSD) briefly surged past $99,000 Thursday, creating another price record as investors, big and small, can't seem to get enough of the cryptocurrency.

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has more than doubled in value this year, gaining over 130% year-to-date, and is now within striking distance of the $100,000 mark, a level unthinkable a year ago when it traded close to $37,000.

Donald Trump's U.S. presidential election win earlier this month and the promise of a more crypto-friendly administration has propelled bitcoin prices 46% higher in a little over two weeks.

Investors also cheered the departure announcement for U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler on Thursday. Gensler faced criticism from the crypto industry for his enforcement approach.

Bitcoin-Hungry Investors Fuel Price Rally

Bitcoin is getting interest from investors, both retail and institutional.

Flows into the spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) also have been breaking records over the past few weeks. These products hold bitcoin and buy the cryptocurrency as more investors pour money into them, in turn driving bitcoin prices higher.

And these products not only are getting popular with retail investors. According to data analyzed by Coinbase, more institutional investors—such as hedge funds and investment advisers—bought into spot bitcoin ETFs in the third quarter than in the previous one.

Meanwhile, bitcoin-related stocks are also on the receiving end of massive action on Wall Street.

According to Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas, what he refers to as the "Bitcoin Industrial Complex," a collection of publicly traded companies and ETFs with direct or indirect exposure to the bitcoin price, posted a record of more than $50 billion in trading volume on Wednesday. Notably, MicroStrategy (MSTR), which pivoted to a strategy of acquiring bitcoin in 2020, recently has had stock trading volumes that rival the likes of Tesla (TSLA) and Nvidia (NVDA).