Bitcoin Price Tops $80,000 for First Time

Bitcoin traded above $80,000 over the weekend, extending a run for the leading cryptocurrency, which got a lift from last week’s election victory by Donald Trump. 

Bitcoin (BTCUSD) recently traded around $79,700, up about 4% over the past 24 hours and still in the neighborhood of record levels. The expectation that a second Trump administration and a new Congress thought to be friendlier to the industry has lifted both bitcoin and other assets in the sector, with investors lately pouring money into instruments like spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds.

The rise has boosted the estimated market cap of crypto broadly, with the figure recently above $2.7 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. 

It has also helped shares of crypto-linked companies like MicroStrategy (MSTR), a big bitcoin holder—it said its bitcoin holdings were valued above $16 billion at the end of the third quarter—and exchange Coinbase Global (COIN). 

More broadly, investor optimism has lifted markets in recent days. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average last week finished their best weeks of the year.