Around 10:30 am on December 5, 2024, BTC broke through the $100,000 mark, officially entering the six-digit range, and its market capitalization also exceeded $2 trillion. This comes 15 years after the birth of BTC.
In 15 years, BTC has grown from $0 to a market capitalization of $2 trillion, on par with Google and far exceeding silver. BTC, along with the entire cryptocurrency market, has grown from a newborn infant to a gradually maturing, vibrant, and full of potential teenager, and is ready to embrace the next fifteen years with a brand new mindset and state.
From $0.0008 to $100,000, BTC has seen a gain of over 125 million times in the past fifteen years. Perhaps we can also expect to see what kind of achievements BTC will make in the next fifteen years.
Meanwhile, with Trump appointing Paul Atkins as the new SEC chairman, ready to sweep away the troubles of the Gary Gensler era at the SEC. This will also bring new plays and new ideas to the industry, and the future of BTC and cryptocurrencies looks promising.
BTC's Past 15 Years
Let's look back 15 years. In November 2008, a paper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" authored by Satoshi Nakamoto was published on the Internet. This paper systematically expounded on how to build an electronic transaction system without relying on third-party trust through a peer-to-peer network, bringing a disruptive idea to the global financial field.
At that time, the world was experiencing an unprecedented financial crisis. This crisis, which began in the United States and was marked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, triggered a chain reaction that not only shook the US financial system, but also affected the global economy. In order to rescue the economy on the brink of collapse, the US government implemented unprecedented intervention policies, including injecting huge public funds into financial institutions and implementing quantitative easing policies. Although these measures stabilized the market in the short term, they also sowed hidden dangers: excessive money supply, increased inflation risk, and increased volatility in financial markets, even leading to public distrust of the traditional financial system.
It was against this background that Satoshi Nakamoto conceived the idea of designing a brand new monetary system. He hoped to use technological means to build a decentralized payment system that no longer relied on the government and financial institutions. In the traditional financial system, the issuance of currency is monopolized by the central bank, and transactions are recorded and processed by financial institutions such as commercial banks. Although this model has been running for many years, it inevitably exposes the problems caused by centralization, such as excessive dependence on monetary policy, corruption of financial institutions, and lack of transaction privacy.
The core idea of Bitcoin is to break this traditional model. Satoshi Nakamoto proposed the concept of blockchain technology, which is a distributed ledger technology that verifies and records transactions through the consensus mechanism of all network nodes. With the help of the blockchain, Bitcoin has realized decentralized transactions, where users can complete payments directly through the peer-to-peer network without relying on any intermediary. This not only improves transaction efficiency and reduces costs, but also provides higher privacy protection for transactions.
Just two months after the paper was published, on January 3, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto mined the Genesis Block of Bitcoin on a small server in Helsinki, Finland. As a reward, he received the first 50 Bitcoins. The timestamp of the Genesis Block also contains a symbolic text: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks". This text not only records the historical background of Bitcoin's birth, but also embodies its symbolic meaning as a reflection on the traditional financial system.
From the moment the Genesis Block was born, Bitcoin took its historic first step. Although initially only a small number of tech geeks and cryptography enthusiasts were involved, the potential of this emerging thing was gradually recognized by more people. Bitcoin is not only a digital currency, but also a technological revolution. With decentralization and transparency as its core, it has opened up new possibilities for payment methods, value storage, and financial innovation.
Over time, Bitcoin and the underlying blockchain technology have continued to evolve, attracting the attention of countless developers, investors, and businesses. Today, Bitcoin has become a global asset, playing an important role not only in the financial field, but also triggering profound discussions on technological ethics and economic systems. It has also risen from $0.0008 to $100,000.
How BTC Broke Through
Around 4 am on January 11, 2024, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs, including BlackRock's IBIT. This move caused a huge stir in the global financial market. As of November 21, 2024, in just 10 months, Bitcoin ETFs have attracted over $100 billion in inflows, which is close to 82% of the size of the US gold ETF. This change means that Bitcoin is no longer just a high-risk speculative instrument dominated by scattered retail investors, but is gradually becoming an important asset for global institutional investors.
With the influx of these funds, the market structure of Bitcoin has undergone a fundamental transformation. Wall Street financial giants, global listed companies, and even sovereign wealth funds of multiple countries are all participating in this race to snap up Bitcoin. The rise of institutional investment has made Bitcoin not only the "private domain" of cryptocurrency enthusiasts, but also an asset category that cannot be ignored in the traditional financial system.
Take MicroStrategy (MSTR) as an example. This company, which was once primarily a business software company, has successfully transformed into the world's largest Bitcoin holder. As of December 5, 2024, MicroStrategy holds more than 402,100 Bitcoins, accounting for 1.5% of the global Bitcoin total supply. MicroStrategy has spent a total of $23.483 billion to acquire Bitcoin, with an average purchase price of $58,402. Now, MicroStrategy's paper gains have exceeded $16.7 billion, making it one of the most influential "whales" in the global Bitcoin market. At the same time, more than 60 listed companies and thousands of private companies are also quietly following MicroStrategy's example and joining the ranks of Bitcoin accumulation.
Behind this trend, the policy shift in the United States has played a crucial role. After taking office, Trump quickly cleared a series of institutional obstacles to the development of cryptocurrencies and adopted a more relaxed cryptocurrency regulatory policy, supporting the plan to include Bitcoin as a strategic asset in government reserves. This policy relaxation has injected strong confidence into the market, driving more capital to flow into the Bitcoin market, and laying a solid foundation for the financialization and legalization of Bitcoin.
This process of Bitcoin's globalization is actually a complex script woven by multiple factors. First, against the backdrop of the Fed's interest rate cut cycle, the liquidity of the global capital market has greatly increased, and the attractiveness of Bitcoin as an unconventional asset has become increasingly prominent. The entry of Wall Street giants like BlackRock and Vanguard has injected a large amount of institutional capital into the Bitcoin market and provided it with higher market recognition. At the same time, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has become a passionate supporter of Bitcoin. By leveraging to increase his Bitcoin holdings, he not only drove up the price of Bitcoin, but also led to a surge in the company's stock price, forming a "stock price-coin price" spiral upward effect, which has encouraged more listed companies to follow suit.
More importantly, the shift in the Trump administration's cryptocurrency policy has provided institutional guarantees for this process. Trump not only publicly expressed support for Bitcoin, but also proposed to include Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset for the United States. This historic decision has further accelerated the "normalization" of Bitcoin, transforming it from an emerging speculative tool into a part of the global financial system.
This process of the financialization of Bitcoin, can be said to be a carefully planned "top-level conspiracy". When Bitcoin ETFs were approved in the US market, Wall Street giants flocked in, and MicroStrategy and other companies swallowed Bitcoin like whales, the entire market is undergoing profound changes. Cryptocurrencies are no longer just an investment for a small circle, but are gradually becoming an important part of the global capital market, heralding a profound transformation in the financial field in the future.
Through this series of policy adjustments, market changes, and corporate behavior, the status of Bitcoin has undergone a earth-shaking change, and in the future it may not only be an alternative choice in the asset class, but one of the core assets in the global economic system.
The Impact of Paul Atkins' Election
In addition to the above reasons, another important factor that has contributed to the breakthrough of BTC above $100,000 is the confirmation of the new chairman of the SEC.
On the early morning of December 5, 2024, Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social that Paul Atkins will become the new chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This decision marks a major shift in US financial regulatory policy, which may have far-reaching implications for the future capital market. Paul Atkins, 66 years old, is a financial regulatory expert with a deep background, who has long been committed to promoting business freedom and reducing government intervention.
Atkins' political stance and regulatory philosophy are consistent with many conservative financial experts. He advocates more market-oriented policies and argues for reducing the regulatory burden on companies. After the 2008 global financial crisis, he publicly opposed the Dodd-Frank Act, which strengthened the regulation of financial institutions and required high fines for companies suspected of violating securities laws. He believes that excessive financial regulation stifles innovation and business vitality, especially in the digital currency and financial technology fields, which has made him a representative of market liberalism.
Atkins' political influence became apparent after Trump was elected president in 2016. At that time, he played an important role in Trump's transition team, pushing the Trump administration to adopt a more relaxed financial regulatory policy and advocating the withdrawal of many regulatory laws that affect the free operation of the financial market. This stance was implemented after the Trump administration took office, and Trump also clearly expressed support for reducing the regulatory burden on financial institutions.
According to the New York Times, Atkins' appointment may signal that the US Securities and Exchange Commission will adopt a more relaxed regulatory strategy, especially in the regulation of the digital transformation of financial markets and cryptocurrencies. Atkins has repeatedly stated that he supports solving financial regulatory issues through market-based means, and emphasizes that the government should respect the free choices of businesses and investors. This regulatory philosophy may provide more space for technological innovation and capital market development, especially in the fields of cryptocurrencies and financial technology. With the popularization of digital asset investment tools such as Bitcoin ETFs, Atkins' policy orientation may accelerate the legalization process of digital assets in the mainstream financial market.
Furthermore, under Atkins' leadership, the US Securities and Exchange Commission may pay more attention to innovative assets and technologies in the financial market, reduce excessive intervention in the traditional financial market, and promote the rapid development of emerging financial products. His appointment is also seen as a kind of "deregulation" for the financial industry, especially in a series of financial innovations and digital asset fields that were originally strictly regulated. This change may not only affect investors' confidence, but also change the competitive landscape of the entire financial industry.
Summary
BTC has completed a 125 million-fold increase in 15 years, and has also brought a brand new industry to this world, an industry that already has tens of millions of practitioners and hundreds of millions of users, with hundreds of subdivided tracks. More importantly, the cryptocurrency industry, which has completed the initial asset accumulation, is ushering in a brand new dawn, with the integration of AI, the association with real-world assets (RWA), and the further development of related tracks such as token-stock parity and wealth management, where traditional capital and cryptocurrency capital are coupled. As encryption technology is widely adopted in the real world, we will see more encryption applications in the future. BTC breaking through $100,000 is just the beginning, like a pure child growing into a vibrant teenager, this is a brand new beginning.
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