Coindesk

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)The wait is over. Bitcoin has surged past $100,000, driven by a number of factors, including President-elect Donald Trump's appointment of supposedly crypto-friendly Paul Atkins to lead the SEC. Most analysts are bullish, anticipating further gains toward $120,000 and higher, and it's not hard to see why. As Newton's first law states, an object in motion maintains its speed and direction unless acted on by an outside force.The wider market is poised to benefit from bitcoin's milestone, especially as the six-digit price may be too steep for many retail investors, prompting them to consider alternative cryptocurrencies.Ether, in particular, is likely to benefit because the spread between the Ethereum staking yield and the...

Bitcoin (BTC), Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said yesterday, is not a competitor of the U.S. dollar but to gold. Not only did the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization soar through $100,000 during Asia trading hours, reaching a record $104,000, it's also at an all-time high when priced in gold, worth about 39 ounces, breaking through the last remaining resistance level for that trading pair. It has also hit records against silver and the S&P 500.The price action means bitcoin is now an over-$2 trillion asset class, with its sights on overtaking Google (GOOG), whose market cap is $2.14 trillion, and Amazon (AMZ) at $2.29 trillion. That would happen if it hit $115,000 a token and make it the fifth-largest...

Circle Internet Financial, issuer of the world's second largest stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), has made some layoffs as part of a regular review of its operations, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.The job cuts amount to "less than 6% of Circle's workforce," according to the report, citing a company spokesperson.Circle, which filed for an initial public offering in the U.S. in January, said it had 882 employees in June, so 6% would equate to just over 50 people. "Circle regularly reviews our investments and expenses includes investing in teams and operational infrastructure that need to grow, while marginally reducing spend and some roles in other areas of the business," the spokesperson said.With a market cap of $40.4 billion, according to CoinDesk...

Bitcoin (BTC) and the broader crypto market are witnessing strong demand for bullish leveraged plays, a sign the market is overheated. While market makers' hedging is likely to keep BTC supported at around $100,000, the heightened activity raises the risk of pullbacks for other cryptocurrencies.Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, tapped a record high above $103,000 early Thursday, following President-elect Donald Trump's decision to appoint pro-crypto Paul Atkins as chairman for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).The breakout sent traders chasing the price rally, pushing funding rates for perpetual futures skywards, a sign of growing demand for and overcrowding in long positions. In this scenario, a slight pullback can result in large liquidations (forced selling by exchanges due to...

Publicly traded BIT Mining (BTCM) will continue its self-hosted mining operations for dogecoin (DOGE) and litecoin (LTC) after the endeavor reaped three times more profit than its bigger bitcoin (BTC) mining operations, per a release.BIT Mining said it had mined 84,485.42 LTC (worth $10 million at current prices) and 227,908,250 DOGE (worth a whopping $100 million) since it started its self-mining business. It reported having over 5,500 active mining machines, representing 1.32% of the global network hash rate in LTC, DOGE and the smaller Belcoin (BEL).Such gains on its DOGE operations came as the token’s prices have more than tripled since late September on repeated endorsements by technocrat Elon Musk and the proposal of a Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E),...