Bitcoin hits record driven by Trump’s return to White House

LONDON

Bitcoin continued to push to new highs, hitting a record $81,740 on Nov. 11 as traders bet that Donald Trump's return to the White House will be good for the cryptocurrency.

Trump was seen as the pro-crypto candidate in his battle with the Democratic Party's candidate Kamala Harris.

During his first presidency Trump referred to cryptocurrencies as a scam, but has since radically changed his position, even launching his own platform for the unit.

He has pledged to make the United States the "bitcoin and cryptocurrency capital of the world," and to put tech billionaire and right-wing conspiracy theorist Elon Musk in charge of a wide-ranging audit of governmental waste.

Trump announced in September that he, along with his sons and entrepreneurs, would launch a digital currency platform named World Liberty Financial.

But it had a faltering sales launch earlier this month, with only a fraction of its tokens that went on the market finding a buyer.

"We shouldn't expect this bullish trend to be interrupted for a long time, about a year. The next level for me is $100,000," Stephane Ifrah, of French crypto asset management company Coinhouse, told AFP.

It has been rising since Republican candidate Trump won last week’s U.S. presidential election over sentiment that he will ease regulations on digital currencies.

"The odds that Bitcoin and crypto will become a significantly larger asset class have risen markedly," Charles Morris, an analyst at investment company ByteTree told AFP.