Author: Gyroscope Finance
BTC has finally broken through $100,000.
After experiencing 2 weeks of corrective volatility, BTC today returned to its peak, surging from $98,000 to break through $100,000, officially embarking on a new six-figure journey. As of the time of writing, BTC is currently quoted at $102,649, up over 6.29% intraday. Ethereum also did not lag behind, successfully standing at $3,900, currently quoted at $3,917.42, up 5.77% intraday.
With the psychological barrier broken, market volatility is also intensifying. According to Coinglass data, as of the time of writing, 213,167 people were liquidated within 24 hours, with a total liquidation amount of $677.43 million, of which $369 million were long positions and $308 million were short positions.
In terms of news, the nomination of the new SEC chairman has released more positive sentiment. According to Jinshi, Donald Trump, the elected President of the United States, said on Wednesday that he has formally nominated Paul Atkins to serve as Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Compared to the previous iron-fisted leader Gensler, Atkins' attitude towards crypto is more than just friendly. From his resume, Paul Atkins graduated from Wofford College, joined the New York law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell after graduation, and officially joined the SEC in 1990, and is known for opposing "imposing large fines on companies that violate securities laws".
During his tenure, Atkins has been committed to seeking a balance between promoting innovation and strengthening investor protection, and has assisted the SEC Chairman in formulating several key regulations. In the direction of digital assets, he has also served as co-chairman of the Token Alliance, an industry association that advocates for the digital asset and blockchain industry, since 2017. Atkins has also repeatedly advocated for the crypto industry, saying that the SEC's enforcement actions have stifled the development of the U.S. crypto industry and calling for reduced regulation of cryptocurrencies. More importantly, Paul Atkins is also the official advisor to the RSR token.
It can be seen that the nominee has rich experience in regulatory construction, and has token backing himself, and also presents a very positive attitude towards digital assets, which can help build a more clear and inclusive regulatory framework for digital assets. In the nomination announcement, Trump also praised him highly, stating that "Paul Atkins believes that sound, innovative capital markets can meet the needs of investors and provide the capital to make our economy the best in the world. He also recognizes that digital assets and other innovations are critical to making America stronger."
Just yesterday, the news about whether Paul Atkins can be appointed as SEC chairman has caused a bit of a mess in the market, with token frontrunning and fake news spreading, and BTC also took a roller coaster ride. Of course, Paul Atkins is currently only nominated, and still needs to be confirmed by the Senate, and his own willingness will also determine who will occupy this precious regulatory seat.
Compared to who will be the SEC chairman, for the market, the more important thing is the visible arrival of the new crypto era, the initial display of the regulatory framework promised by Trump, whether from the emotional or factual perspective, this is a critical boost.
Returning to BTC itself, from 2010 when Laszlo Hanyecz spent 10,000 BTC to buy a pizza, giving BTC a real price scale, to now BTC breaking through six figures, 16 years have passed.
As the once-joked "Ponzi scheme" or the "financial experiment" objectively called BTC, which was once mocked and ridiculed by the mainstream, has now become the most successful investment product in the past 16 years, creating an unimaginable growth miracle. According to the price of the BTC pizza, BTC has now appreciated 40 million times, and even this year, BTC has risen by 135%. From the current perspective, the value of all circulating BTC has reached $2 trillion, exceeding the total value of Mastercard, Walmart and JPMorgan Chase, and in the global asset ranking list of Companies marketcap, the market value of BTC has surpassed silver and ranked 7th in the global asset market value.
This social experiment has undoubtedly been a success, and perhaps talk of surpassing sovereign currencies is still premature, but this is undoubtedly a comprehensive victory for decentralized currencies from the bottom up, a victory for the participants made up of geeks and grassroots. In the not-too-long 16 years, BTC has gradually shed the stigma of money laundering and fraud, and has gradually moved from digital gold to supranational currency, deriving a new and more autonomous, faster and more transparent financial system as the center of the crypto world, and Web3 is also rapidly evolving on the path of transforming traditional financial infrastructure.
Purely from an asset perspective, $10,000 BTC and $100,000 BTC carry very different implications. $10,000 BTC could be seen as the product of self-indulgence in a small circle, the fantasy of dreamers, but when $100,000 BTC appears, the mainstream world is inevitably focused on it, and a new era of digital assets is slowly unfolding.
Good assets are always bought more when they fall, but for BTC, the main theme is to buy more when it rises, and the price will make it truly recognized as a good asset. BTC breaking through $10,000 attracted the entry of Grayscale; BTC breaking through $50,000 saw MicroStrategy rushing in; when BTC exceeded $60,000, global institutions like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Franklin began to run into the market; when BTC exceeds $100,000, its supranational currency nature becomes prominent, and becoming a national reserve may become a reality.
Just yesterday, Putin spoke at an investment forum in Moscow, advocating for BTC to be used as a global reserve asset instead of the U.S. dollar, with the core reason being that "no one can ban BTC".
It can be foreseen that the next step for BTC will be keywords such as public company purchases, traditional institution participation, and the establishment of national reserves, and user adoption will be the inevitable path for BTC.
In terms of numbers, the user base of the crypto market is still surprisingly small, according to a16z's estimate, the current global monthly active crypto currency users are about 30-60 million, but these few million crypto users have created a $3 trillion crypto empire, and if combined with the global 5.4 billion internet population, the potential behind it is self-evident.
From the perspective of national reserves, currently, due to the protection of sovereign currencies and financial security considerations, the vast majority of mainstream regions have strict purchase conditions for cryptocurrencies, only the third world countries suffering from inflation see BTC as an alternative to currencies. If the U.S. includes it in its national reserves, when 1 million BTC enters Congress, the international imagination of BTC may truly be unleashed.
As of now, BTC is still more than 7 times away from the $15 trillion market cap of gold, but the growth miracle of the past 16 years has made this growth target within reach. $100,000, may really just be the beginning.
Even Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell recently stated that BTC is not a competitor to the U.S. dollar, but a competitor to gold, and is currently not widely used as a means of payment, with high price volatility, and individuals are not allowed to hold it solely due to identity reasons.
From the development path, BTC's small step is a big step for the crypto industry. Mainstream adoption is not just a symbolic representation of BTC, but under its influence, the once-hidden crypto participants can now stand tall as value investors. Altcoins have also successfully opened up new paths.
Currently, there are 16 new crypto ETFs that have officially submitted applications to the SEC, with Grayscale and Bitwise launching a basket of cryptocurrency indexes, while institutions led by VanEck, 21shares, Canary, and Wisdomtree are targeting Altcoin ETFs, with Solana, XRP, Litecoin, and HBAR officially becoming participants in the ETFs. On the upcoming January 25th, many ETFs will face their first concentrated review period.
Whether or not they are approved, but thanks to the SEC chairman who will soon take office and the support of institutions, the long-awaited Altcoin season, which has been waiting for nearly 3 years, has finally arrived after constant falsification.
Looking at the market performance, in contrast to the crypto principle of not chasing new coins but old ones, the speculators in this bull market have finally started to reminisce. With Ethereum successfully breaking through $3,800, SOL and BNB have hit new highs in succession, and TRON has even broken a record that has lasted since January 2018, soaring 69% in a single day.
The large-cap zombie Tokens that were previously listed by Forbes have also suddenly come back to life. XRP has risen from $0.5 on November 5 to $2.7, reaching a high of $2.8, surging 500% in the month, and rising 53.70% in the last 7 days. ALGO and XLM have soared 4 times in 30 days, and even the long-dormant ADA and EOS have risen more than 200% in 30 days.
The rise in Token prices has pushed the market's emotional symphony to a climax, accelerating the mainstream adoption of crypto assets, and the recognition of their value is beginning to grow. And all of this is based on the realization of BTC.
It must be admitted that BTC also has its limitations.
Although BTC, born in the midst of a currency crisis, has begun to be seen as a sovereign currency by some countries, it is still far from truly realizing a unit of account and a medium of exchange. And the title of "digital gold" has made BTC more of an inflation-resistant investment product than a stable trading currency.
The decentralized values of the crypto world are also inevitably impacted, and the side effects of mainstream adoption - the trend of the dollarization of crypto assets - are constantly emerging. Compared to BTC, the total net asset value of 11 BTC spot ETFs in the US is $108.23 billion, accounting for 5.54% of BTC's market capitalization. And from a national perspective, the US holds over 210,000 BTCs, making it one of the largest BTC holders in the world.
Against this backdrop, the decisive role of the US in the crypto field is irreplaceable, and Wall Street institutions have successfully replaced retail investors as the carriers and controllers of value, making the core assets increasingly distant from ordinary people, which has become an inevitable trend.
But fortunately, the public fruit born of private desires is still spreading. The imagination economy represented by cryptocurrencies is still soaring, and the opportunity for young people to turn their fortunes around with small bets has not yet dissipated, with the dream of getting rich quickly wrapped in the hope of freedom, shining brightly in the increasingly specialized and class-solidified modern society, attracting the arrival of many new Z-era participants.
The creators of all this are the countless crypto practitioners. Today, many practitioners are showing off the goods they once spent "a fortune" to buy, a computer for 245 BTC, headphones for 67 BTC, a hamburger for 30 BTC, and in the "most expensive in history" jest, everyone also knows in their hearts that without the hard work of these practitioners, the crypto world might not have persisted to this day.
The new era of crypto assets is about to arrive, and in this victory of the crypto masses, each participant should be rewarded by time for their perseverance.
