Bitcoin soars above $109,000 to hit fresh record-high over pumped-up crypto bets ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration | Stock Market News

The price of bitcoin surged to over USD 109,000 early Monday, just hours ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, as a pumped up cryptocurrency industry bets he’ll take action soon after returning to the White House.

Bitcoin is the world’s most popular cryptocurrency and was created in 2009 as a kind of electronic cash uncontrolled by banks or governments. It and newer forms of cryptocurrencies have moved from the financial fringes to the mainstream in wild fits and starts.

The highly volatile nature of cryptocurrencies as well as their use by criminals, scammers and rogue nations, has attracted plenty of critics, who say the digital currencies have limited utility and often are just Ponzi schemes.

But crypto has so far defied naysayers and survived multiple prolonged price drops in its short lifespan. Wealthy players in the crypto industry, which felt unfairly targeted by the Biden administration, spent heavily to help Trump win November’s election. Bitcoin has surged in price since Trump’s victory, topping $100,000 for the first time last month before briefly sliding down to about $90,000. On Friday, it rose about 5%. It jumped more than $9,000 early Monday, according to CoinDesk.

Trump also promised that as president he’ll ensure the US government stockpiles bitcoin, much like it already does with gold. At the bitcoin conference earlier this summer, Trump said it the US government would keep, rather than auction off, the billions of dollars in bitcoin it has seized through law enforcement actions.