By Crypto-linked stocks rose Thursday as the industry cheers bitcoin’s rally to top $100,000 for the first time ever.
Shares of Coinbase and retail brokerage Robinhood, which offers several cryptocurrencies on its platform, rallied on Thursday, up 5% and 2% respectively.
MicroStrategy, one of the largest holders of the token, also rose, up 3%. The stock is up more than 540% in 2024, and the company’s share price is heavily linked to its bitcoin buying strategy. Those purchases have accelerated in recent weeks, totaling almost $14 billion since November 11.
Bitcoin miners also gained. Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital rallied 3% and 6%, respectively.
The rise came after bitcoin passed $100,000 for the first time in history, helped on Wednesday by president-elect Donald Trump naming Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Atkins, a crypto advocate, will replace current SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who has been criticized by the industry for taking a more aggressive approach to reggulation.
Under his leadership, the SEC cracked down on crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance, filing lawsuits against them last year to argue that tokens like Solana, Cardano, and Polygon are unregistered securities.
Atkins’ appointment has further boosted the industry’s enthusiasm since Trump’s reelection. The president-elect was a staunch crypto advocate throughout his campaign, billing himself as the “crypto president” and speaking at a bitcoin conference, as well as launching his own stablecoin.
He is expected to support policies easing regulation over the industry during his term, which has boosted several analysts’ projections for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
The Benchmark Company’s Mark Palmer has said bitcoin could rally to $225,000 in the next two years, while Standard Chartered has said it could hit $200,000 by the end of 2025.
The cryptocurrency was trading at $103,444.90 Thursday morning, bringing its total gains since Election Day to over 51%.
