STORY: Bitcoin catapulted above $100,000 for the first time on Thursday, a milestone celebrated even by skeptics of the digital asset.

The historic rise comes as investors bet on a crypto-friendly new US government…

A day earlier, President-elect Donald Trump nominated pro-crypto lawyer Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The appointment of Atkins, a former top SEC official who has pushed for deregulation, could provide relief to a crypto industry that has suffered under President Joe Biden’s hardline SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.

Dan Ives is global head of technology research at Wedbush Securites.

“Deregulation will clearly happen. A new SEC chairman who looks pro-Bitcoin. Very optimistic in this regard. So I think a lot of what we’re seeing there is a Trump bump, but I don’t think it’s going to stop because I think Trump can be pretty aggressive when it comes to Bitcoin once he’s in the White House is.”

Bitcoin’s value has more than doubled this year, rising more than 50% in the four weeks since Trump’s election victory – which also saw a number of crypto proponents elected to Congress.

Analysts say Bitcoin’s growing adoption by major investors has been a driving force behind the record-breaking rally this year.

But Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex, sees Bitcoin’s rise as part of a larger social and political movement.

“The ground we’ve been standing on is shifting, and this shifting sand, in this kind of turmoil, we don’t really know who the winners or who the losers are going to be. And I think that if you reject it, as in many elections, particularly in the developed world this year, you rejected the incumbents. And so I kind of see Bitcoin as part of this rejection of mainstream values ​​and the values, and not just the values ​​of society, but really of the elites.”

According to data provider CoinGecko, the total value of the cryptocurrency market almost doubled during the year, reaching a record value of over $3.8 trillion – surpassing the value of Apple.