A pig out for the ages

In a frantic boom, Bitcoin shot to nearly $90,000 early this morning during Asian trading. But a dizzy spell took hold as the sun rose on the East Coast and the largest crypto fainted into the burly arms of $87.5K, a lofty region indeed. It's one that was widely foretold by legions of digital denizens banking on a Trump presidential victory teeing up a decidedly pro-crypto agenda. Even still, the swiftness and steepness of BTC's ascension has been staggering.

Naturally, Ethereum went along for the history-making ride. The second-largest crypto has surged 35% since last Tuesday. ETH's recent high of about $3,400 arrived at 4 a.m. (EST).

Dogecoin (DOGE), meanwhile, surged 35% just in the past 24 hours. Elon Musk's favorite memecoin hit forty cents for the first time in more than three years amidst the growing realization that the communications, automotive and space mogul has made proximity to power his newest passion.

A hat's off to XRP, up 11% in 24 hours. We'd fingered it as an incongruous laggard only yesterday. XRP today sits at nearly 65 cents. That level hasn't been seen since March, around the time BTC was flirting with a then record price near $74K but before it had become clear that the SEC was bent on completely digging in its heels with respect to its legal fight with Ripple, the ledger technology closely associated with XRP.

Looking at the Top 30 coins, there's a noteworthy double-digit-percentage performer over 24 hours (other than DOGE and XRP) and it's Cronos (CRO), which is closing in on 18 cents after being seven cents just a month ago.

Scanning the board for sheer enormity in terms of blazing one-day streaks, we spotted Happy Cat (HAPPY), up 99% in 24 hours as of Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. (EST). Solana-bred HAPPY has a market capitalization of now almost $90 million, making it the 523rd-largest token, per CoinGecko.

The Trump rally has extended to the stock market and not surprisingly crypto stocks are on a tear. MicroStrategy is up 50% since the Nov. 5 election. Coinbase and mining companies, including Marathon and Hut 8, also have claimed dibs on post-election euphoria.

Meanwhile, BTC options trading action hit an all-time high as a surge of investors seek to climb aboard the Trump train.

A polarizing, firebrand political figure, Trump often mixes over-the-top rhetoric with his own brand of crass humor to convey, generally, an authentic sense that he will always tell it like it is (as he sees it). However, media watchdogs have flagged copious amounts of untrue utterances pumped out routinely during his time in the White House and on the campaign trail; this, in turn, has prompted a backlash against Trump's fact-checkers, such as the Washington Post, CNN and PolitiFact, flatly dismissed as "fake news."

As recently as 2021, Trump called Bitcoin "a scam." However, he may not have actually meant that at the time or has changed his way of thinking. More recently, courting the crypto vote, Trump vowed to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the planet.” He's even backed a family-run DeFi platform.

If the U.S. government wants to create a stockpile of stacked satoshis, as Trump has floated as being among his priorities (alongside aggressive tariffs and mass deportations), it had better get cracking as BTC has never been this pricey.

The record spot BTC price of $89,864.13 came just after midnight, today, Nov. 12, per CoinGecko. BTC's market cap has now reached $1.72T, exceeding silver to become the eighth-largest asset class.

Total worldwide crypto assets are now $3.02 trillion.

A wild swing thrilled crypto watchers earlier today but someone had to pay the price.

BTC spiking to nearly $90K but then retreating to $87K, within only a few hours, had a net negative impact on a cadre of futures traders, bears and bulls alike, as some $700 million worth of positions got liquidated in the pre-dawn volatility (CoinDesk).

Meanwhile, Solana's DEX Raydium, which saw it's native RAY climb to $6 last week, can today lay claim to one of the starkest red stains on a chart otherwise awash in green. RAY fell 17% in 24 hours to $4.50, according to CoinGecko.

Trump's re-election has set off a stampede of BTC options trading. Owing to BTC's record climb, while also assisting in spurring it along, total open interest for BTC options contracts yesterday rocketed to nearly $25B, according to Deribit, per Decrypt.

The previous open-interest peak for BTC contracts was about $24 billion; that was on Nov. 7.

A chorus of analysts have forecast BTC hitting $100K by midnight on New Year's Eve. And yet there could be some upset stomachs by the time Thanksgiving dinner rolls around later this month.

"Traders warn of a price correction in the short term," CoinDesk said, pointing to a risk of a leverage washout above $90K. 

Which is not to say that BTC can't get to the $100K level, just that it might not come by way of a mad, parabolic dash like the one witnessed since Sunday. 

That the $80,000-to-$90,000 stair step just got leap-frogged seemed scarily rushed, enough to conjure a modicum of too-much/too-soon anxiety, at least within the world of options on futures.

CoinDesk points out a raft of predictions that have BTC much more slowly ascending from current levels to $100K.

Looking out at the wider landscape, longer term, some analysts are forecasting that the total crypto market capitalization could grow to $10 trillion trillion by the end of 2026.