Bitcoin at $100,000, driven by easing of trade war

"Now that the United States appears more reasonable and is concluding agreements with other countries, cryptocurrencies are on the rise again," notes Stéphane Ifrah, investment director at Coinhouse, interviewed by AFP, for whom "there is clearly a return of risk appetite."

Bitcoin first crossed the symbolic $100,000 threshold in December, then reached a record price of $109,241.11 on January 20, just hours before Donald Trump's inauguration as US president.

The Republican campaigned on a second pro-crypto term, including the creation of a national strategic bitcoin reserve, which has since been enacted.

But the US president's burst of customs announcements then sparked a wave of uncertainty in the financial markets.

Although they were not directly affected by these surcharges, digital currencies have nevertheless suffered from their reputation as particularly volatile assets, and have been abandoned by investors in favor of safer assets, such as gold.

The sector has also been marred this year by several scandals, such as the collapse of the cryptocurrency $Libra, previously promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei, and the historic theft of $1.5 billion from the Bybit platform by North Korean hackers.

By early April, Bitcoin had even fallen below the $75,000 mark.

Bitcoin has been on the rise for several weeks now, driven by the influx into ETFs, investment products that track the performance of this crypto, Stéphane Ifrah points out.

The agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom "is one more reason to bet on a rise in bitcoin, as many other agreements are likely to follow," predicting an easing of the trade war, said Charlie Morris, an analyst at ByteTree, in response to AFP.

At around 4:25 p.m. GMT (6:25 p.m. in Paris), the most highly capitalized cryptocurrency climbed 4.22% to $100,881.

The second largest digital currency by market capitalization, Ether, soared 13.9% to $2,058.24.