What is the US’s Crypto Week? Why has Bitcoin hit a record high?

Bitcoin has scaled $120,000 for the archetypal time, a large milestone for the world’s largest cryptocurrency successful the run-up to what could beryllium a landmark week.

Starting July 14, “Crypto Week” volition spot the US House of Representatives statement 3 industry-friendly bills that are apt to supply cryptocurrencies with the US regulatory model that crypto insiders person agelong demanded.

US President Donald Trump has urged policymakers to revamp their rules, distant from the plethora of lawsuits brought against crypto firms by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) nether erstwhile President Joe Biden (2021-2025), successful favour of the industry.

Expectations of further tailwinds helped propel Bitcoin, up 29 percent truthful acold this year, to a grounds precocious of $122,055 connected Monday. Bitcoin, the precise archetypal cryptocurrency, began trading successful January 2009, erstwhile it was valued astatine conscionable $0.004.

The surge has sparked a broader rally crossed different cryptocurrencies as Ether, the world’s second-most fashionable token, reached a five-month precocious of $3,048.2 connected Monday.

More generally, the sector’s full marketplace worth has swelled to astir $3.8 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Cryptocurrencies are a signifier of monetary speech that allows radical to bypass cardinal banks and accepted outgo methods.

What is astatine stake?

US lawmakers volition sermon 3 cardinal pieces of authorities during “Crypto Week”:

• The GENIUS Act aims to clarify erstwhile integer assets similar crypto tokens are considered securities oregon commodities, helping startups debar ineligible uncertainty by providing wide regulatory rules. The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act has already passed the Senate.
• The Clarity Act would artifact national agencies from utilizing tribunal rulings to overextend regulatory power, ensuring that Congress – and not courts – defines however crypto assets are classified and governed.
• The Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a cardinal slope integer currency (CBDC), arguing it could alteration authorities surveillance of Americans’ fiscal enactment and endanger idiosyncratic privacy.

This marks a crisp reversal for a assemblage that erstwhile threatened to bash its concern extracurricular the US, citing a hostile situation and heavy-handed enforcement.

Crypto companies person agelong accused US fiscal regulators (like the SEC) of enacting confusing oregon conflicting rules.

“We expect superior that was antecedently sidelined owed to regulatory uncertainty to re-enter … adjacent if last transition stalls,” Jag Kooner, caput of derivatives astatine Bitfinex crypto exchange, told Reuters.

This week’s decisions could marque it easier for companies to motorboat caller integer plus products and to commercialized successful crypto.

Does the projected authorities person critics?

Democrats are expected to connection amendments to the GENIUS and Clarity Acts.

Critics person argued that the Trump medication is conceding excessively overmuch crushed to the crypto industry.

“I’m acrophobic that what my Republican colleagues are aiming for is different manufacture handout,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said connected July 9 astatine a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing.

She urged Congress to barroom nationalist officials, including Trump, from issuing, backing oregon profiting from crypto tokens.

Warren besides argued that caller crypto rules should not “open a backmost doorway to destroy” longtime securities laws, oregon let volatility successful the crypto marketplace to spill implicit into the accepted fiscal system.

Finally, she underscored that anti-money laundering rules should use to the industry. Crypto users are identified by alphanumeric wallet addresses, not their names, allowing atrocious actors to obscure the root of their illicit funds.

The Biden medication adopted a pugnacious regulatory stance towards cryptocurrencies, aiming to oversee the integer assets arsenic securities taxable to the aforesaid regulations arsenic stocks and bonds.

(Al Jazeera)

What’s Trump’s involvement successful crypto?

Trump, erstwhile a crypto sceptic, became a large promoter during his statesmanlike run past year, adjacent becoming the archetypal major-party statesmanlike campaigner to judge run donations via crypto.

During the 2024 campaign, crypto insiders spent nearly a 4th of a cardinal dollars, according to Federal Election Commission data, successful enactment of crypto allies – and to effort and weed retired antagonists.

In March, Trump said helium would make a crypto reserve that would see 5 cryptocurrencies (including Bitcoin), adding helium would marque the US “the crypto superior of the world”.

Meanwhile, Trump’s household concern has launched respective cryptocurrency meme coins, flash-in-the-pan assets inspired by net jokes oregon taste references, specified arsenic $Trump and $Melania.

Trump has faced disapproval implicit conflicts of involvement regarding his family’s ventures. For instance, World Liberty Financial – a crypto radical backed by Trump and his sons successful 2024 – has earned the president $57m.

Elsewhere, Trump Media & Technology Group filed paperwork with the SEC successful July seeking support to motorboat its ain “Crypto Blue-Chip ETF”, an exchange-traded money holding Bitcoin and different integer currencies.

How has Bitcoin performed since Trump was re-elected?

If Bitcoin were a country, it would fertile successful the apical 10 by gross home product, astir connected par with countries similar Brazil ($2.17 trillion) and Canada ($2.14 trillion).

Since Donald Trump’s re-election successful November 2024, Bitcoin has surged by 75 percent, rising from astir $69,539 astatine adjacent connected Election Day to its existent grounds level. It rallied to supra $100,000 for the archetypal clip past December.

The cryptocurrency concisely dropped beneath $90,000 connected February 25, amid marketplace jitters triggered by Trump’s announcement of caller tariffs connected aggregate countries and industries worldwide, earlier recovering aft Trump’s “crypto reserve” announcement.

Bitcoin’s emergence besides arrives amid a wider backdrop of economical uncertainty, notably the planetary turmoil from Trump’s steep – and on-again, off-again – tariffs imposed connected cardinal trading partners worldwide, successful summation to ongoing conflicts successful Ukraine and the Middle East.

“Bitcoin has shown resilience this year, rebounding successful enactment with its macro exposures pursuing tariff announcements,” Citibank analysts wrote successful a probe insubstantial past week.