Bitcoin broke past $100,000 on Thursday for the first time since February.
The world’s largest crypto has been rising alongside risk assets as trade optimism grows.
A bullish bank analyst says bitcoin will hit $120,000 this quarter.
Bitcoin reclaimed the six-figure mark on Thursday, crossing $100,000 for the first time in three months.
The top crypto hit an intraday high of $101,370, the highest level since early February.
A number of tailwinds have boosted the token recently, but broadly it has been moving in line with other risk assets like stocks, as markets settle down after April’s historic bout of volatility stemming from tariffs.
Similar to stocks, bitcoin gained on Tuesday on news that the White House had reached a trade agreement with the UK—a positive sign that could help unwind last month’s tariff uncertainty and reignite risk appetite among investors.
Analysts have also suggested that April’s trade chaos may positioned bitcoin to climb as tariffs diminish the appeal fo safe havens like the US dollar and Treasurys.
Standard Chartered said that inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs have surged to $5.3 billion over the past three weeks, suggesting that demand has ballooned since mid April.
Meanwhile, New Hampshire and Arizona gave crypto bulls more to be excited about, introducing the country’s first crypto reserves this week.
But to Zack Shapiro, head of policy at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, the impact of state crypto reserves is likely to be small compared to Wall Street’s soaring appetite.
Institutional interest is helping send bitcoin higher, as companies have entered something on an “arms race” to acquire a meaningful stake, he told BI. Strategy, at the forefront of this effort, is now funding a plan to spend $84 billion on more bitcoin acquisitions, Standard Chartered wrote.
Given these factors, bitcoin should make new highs this quarter, the bank’s global head of digital assets research wrote on Thursday. The bank has predicted the token to hit $120,000 in the second quarter but said in the note that the target might be too low.
But others think that while progress on trade gives bitcoin fuel for more gains in the near term, heightened volatility is still a risk for traders as tariff uncertainty stays high.
“Plus, at the moment, BTC is rallying on low volume, which is a recipe for short-term volatility,” Puckrin said.
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