For the first time since February, bitcoin rose beyond $100,000 on Thursday. Analysts attributed this move to a general desire for riskier assets of all kinds as stocks continued to rise from their April lows.
Thomas Perfumo, global economist at cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, stated that “Bitcoin’s return above the six-figure threshold comes amid a broader risk-on revival in global markets.”
“Equities are doing well once more, and investors seem more at ease making riskier asset allocations. In an emailed reply to MarketWatch, Perfumo stated, “These renewed animal spirits are spilling straight into crypto.”
On January 20, the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Bitcoin (BTCUSD) reached its highest point ever at $109,225, as investors anticipated a more lenient regulatory framework for digital assets. But as Trump’s trade policies sent the cryptocurrency into a tailspin across risk markets, it briefly dropped below $80,000 in early April.
Nevertheless, after Trump announced that his administration had secured a preliminary trade agreement with the United Kingdom, stocks and bitcoin both increased on Thursday.
According to José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers, “investors are finally seeing the light at the end of the Trump trade tunnel and are now ready to focus on the growth aspects of the Trump policy mix.”
On Thursday night, Bitcoin was trading at about $102,757 after rising 5% to a peak of $104,049 already. With the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) up 0.6%, U.S. markets also saw gains.
According to Leah Wald, CEO of SOL Strategies, a company that has bitcoin and Solana (SOLUSD) on its balance sheet, bitcoin was still primarily trading as a risk asset even if it demonstrated resiliency over U.S. stocks during the current market turbulence.
Read: Amid tariff unrest, bitcoin beats markets and the dollar, making it “too early” to declare it a safe haven.
“It’s too soon to declare that we’ve completely decoupled, even though there have been times this year when bitcoin has outperformed stocks, particularly during times of macro uncertainty. According to Wald’s email remarks to MarketWatch, “Bitcoin still exhibits the structural characteristics of a high-beta risk asset: It tends to underperform when markets de-risk and outperform when bullish sentiment prevails.” Assets that are more volatile than the market as a whole are referred to as high-beta risk assets.
The governors of Arizona and New Hampshire passed legislation earlier this week creating bitcoin reserves in both states, which further fueled the cryptocurrency’s surge. According to Alexander Blume, CEO of crypto-investment firm Two Prime, the revelation has increased investor optimism even if the states have not bought any bitcoin.
According to Tyler Richey, a technical analyst and co-editor of the Sevens Report, the $106,500 and $101,500 regions are the main resistance zones that bitcoin must contend with. According to Richey’s emailed comments to MarketWatch, bitcoin would be “well-positioned” for a test of its all-time high at $109,225 if it closes Thursday close to its present level above $101,000.
However, according to Richey, bitcoin might have a pullback toward $80,000 if it drops below its short-term support level of $93,780.
Although the relative strength index, a momentum indicator, is over 50, the technical setup for bitcoin is less positive when seen on a weekly basis.
Although the indicator remains positive, Richey pointed out that it is well below its most recent top in December, when the momentum reading peaked at just under 80 and subsequently drove bitcoin’s January rise.
