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Crypto: Trump’s image to drive Bitcoin’s greatest rally

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Crypto: Trump's image to drive Bitcoin's greatest rally

Prior to 2024, Bitcoin had never surpassed its previous all-time high in a halving year. But not only did 2024 break that record, it did so by nearly $50,000, with the globe’s leading cryptocurrency hitting $108,000 on the back of optimism that greeted the victory of Donald Trump in the November United States election.

As at 1pm on Sunday, January 12, 2025, Bitcoin was trading slightly above $94,000, as it continues struggle to pick up momentum in the early days of the year amid general bearish trend in the global stock market. However, that’s only a tiny bit of the story.

Prior to 2024, Bitcoin had never surpassed its previous all-time high in a halving year. But not only did 2024 break that record, it did so by nearly $50,000, with the globe’s leading cryptocurrency hitting $108,000 on the back of optimism that greeted the victory of Donald Trump in the November United States election.

And as the long anticipated 2025 cycling year dawns, crypto experts and traders say a target of $300,000 for Bitcoin is no longer far-fetched. But Bitcoin, like all crypto-currencies, remains a highly volatile asset, and investors are eternally advised to invest what they would be willing to lose.

“Some people are projecting $300,000,” said Adol Omeje, a seasoned trader and analyst. “Before now, we were looking at $210,000, which is in line with the traditional pattern of 3x of the previous all-time high. But the rapid growth adoption and interest from institutional investors indicate that this year will be quite different. Now, even nation states are showing interest in Bitcoin, with lawmakers moving motions to have Bitcoin reserves, much like the gold reserves that we have always known,” he added.

On April 19 2024, Bitcoin completed its 4th halving, which saw reward for mining drop to 3.125 from 6.25. Like the first halving of 2012, which saw reward drop from 50 to 25, and the second halving in 2016, which saw the reward drop to 12.5; and, indeed, 2020 halving, which brought rewards down to 6.25, 2024 was supposed to see Bitcoin hover around $50,000, preparatory to the cycling year of 2025.

But the year 2024 refused to be just preparatory year for another big Bitcoin rally in 2025. It instead seized the momentum and created history. And that for crypto enthusiasts, is a sign of what to expect in 2025.

Bitcoin halving occurs every four years, after which reward for mining the cryptocurrency drops by half. The year after halving is known as the cycling year or post halving year, and historically, it is within the cycling year that Bitcoin breaks new price milestones.

During the 2017 cycling year, for instance – after the 2016 halving – Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $20,000. Subsequently, the price dropped and didn’t reach that level until four years later in 2021, another cycling year when it rallied to another all-time of $69,000, more than times three of its 2017 highs. With the fourth halving in 2024, the expectation was that 2025 would be the year Bitcoin price will surpass the 2021 record. But the introduction of Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), which brought in more institutional investors, pushed the the price above $80,000, before the Trump effect drove it over the $100,000 milestone.

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“A lot is already happening, and because Bitcoin has very limited supply, only 21 million, interest from institutional investors could drive up the price in ways we haven’t seen before,” says Omeje. “The institutional investors are mostly interested in the major cryptos, which are highly capitalized, such as BTC, Ethereum, Solana and so on. So, I really think that Bitcoin reaching $300,000 before the end of this year is not farfetched.

 

“My projection as of 2021 was that it would strike $180,000 in 2025, but with the kind of adoption we are witnessing, $300,000 seems quite realistic. For instance, it had never been witnessed in the history of Bitcoin that it broke it’s all-time high in the proceeding year. In 2024, the max BTC was ideally supposed to have reached is $50,000. Then, we’d have started hoping that it would break its all time high in 2025. But in 2024, it already surpassed its previous all-time high of $69,000, which was achieved in the 2021 cycling year.

 

“That came after the previous cycling year of 2017 during which it reached $20,000. Cycling year is post halving year. Halving took place 2024, post halving is now 2025, which is the year everyone was anticipating a new record high.  But it achieved that already in 2024, the halving year, reaching $108,000. This means that in 2024, it was already adding $50,000 to the previous all-time high of $69,000.”

 

Much of the rallying seen in the later months of 2024 is credit to Donald Trump, who promised to bring crypto into the mainstream of the American economy. He promised, for instance, that the U.S under his watch will have strategic BTC reserve, a radical departure from the Joe Biden-led crypto sceptic Democratic Party administration.

 

But Omeje argues that while it is credit to Trump that Bitcoin broke the $100,000 barrier in late 2024, the market was already bullish before Trump came prominently into the picture.

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“Trump helped Bitcoin to cross $100,000 mark, but what gave it the boost is ETFs,” he said. “ETFs brought a lot of institutional investors. Governments are also now recognizing Bitcoin as an asset. That’s what took it above its all time high, taking it above $80,000. And because the American election was close and Trump, who was the major contestant is pro-crypto, it added fire to push it above $100,000.”

 

But it’s not just about Bitcoin. Crypto-currencies in general continues to attract interest globally, with Alternative Crypto-currencies (Alts) like BNB and Solana surpassing all-time highs in 2024. Ripple, which had been having a case with U.S authorities, but because of the Trump effect, it was dropped, has also appreciated by over 400 percent, and is now number three in terms of capitalization.

 

Presently, Sui, a growing Blockchain network is attracting a lot of interest. It’s been arguably the best performer since the middle of 2024, while another relatively new project, Sei is said to have potential, even if it is yet to gain as much acceptance as Sui.

 

“People are waiting for Alts to move too,” said JP Ezeh, a trader and crypto enthusiast. “They moved in January 2021, the hope is that everything will happen between January and March this year. If Bitcoin reaches $120,000, Alts will push.”

 

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Ezeh is more modest with his projection for Bitcoin in 2025, but agrees that if Trump keeps his promises, things could get very interesting.

 

“My modest projection for Bitcoin in 2025 would be between $150,000 and $200,000,” he said.  “But generally, a lot will depend on whether Donald Trump pushes ahead with his promises. He promised, for instance, that the U.S under his watch will have a strategic BTC reserve. If it happens, other countries are likely to follow suit and that could push prices up very significantly. So far, the introduction of ETFs has led to an increase in adoption. If Trump keeps his promise, that could mean a lot.”

A growing phenomenon

 

In Nigeria, where the local currency, the naira, continues to struggle against international currencies, traders are scampering for options to hedge, and crypto-currencies seem to have become a credible choice.

 

Yet, that only partly explains the rapid growth of crypto adoption in the country. The primary motivation, it seems, is the urge to make money. With high unemployment rate, many are increasingly taking to crypto to earn a living.

 

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Dr. Emomotimi Agama, the Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in June last year that Nigeria’s cryptocurrency market was estimated to be worth over $400 million.

 

The SEC DG, who spoke at the 2024 Annual Conference of the Association of Capital Market Academics of Nigeria (ACMAN) in Abuja on Thursday, with the theme, “Crypto Assets and the Nigerian Economy: Implications for Financial Markets Regulation,” had noted that a “significant portion of the population is involved in cryptocurrency trading and transactions”, predicting that the market volume “will reach $52.5 million by 2028”, representing “a 12.66 percent increase from 2024 to 2028”.

 

Agama had also noted that despite economic challenges, Nigeria has “emerged as one of the leading countries globally in terms of crypto adoption and volume of transactions”.

 

As at 2020, data from Paxful, a peer-to-peer bitcoin marketplace, indicated that the value of bitcoins traded in Nigeria over the previous five years was more than any country in the world, except the United States.

 

The data had shown that Nigeria traded 60,215 bitcoins worth more than $566 million between 2015 to 2020, a figure surpassed only by the U.S, where 535,660 bitcoins were traded between 2015 to 2020 with the value standing at $3.8 billion.

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Nigeria remains Africa’s largest crypto economy, receiving the highest cryptocurrency value between 2022 and 2023, and the trend has continued to grow. A report by global research firm Morning Consult published on July 7, 2022, showed that despite the ban slammed on crypto trade by the Muhammadu Buhari administration in 2021, Nigeria was one of the six countries in which more than a third of the adult population bought or sold cryptocurrencies at least once a month.

 

More recently, tap-to-earn games on Telegram, a popular type of Web3 game mostly built in TON network, that allow players to earn cryptocurrency and other rewards by interacting with the game, has taken the country by storm. In public vehicles, at event centers, etc, individuals tapping their phone screens is a common sight.

 

Powered by Web3, a vision for the next generation of the World Wide Web, which is a decentralized, open internet that aims to put users in control of their data and interactions, built on technologies like blockchain, decentralized data storage, and peer-to-peer networking, tap-to-earn crypto trend is widespread among many Nigerians, especially, students in secondary and university, corporate and commercial drivers, civil servants, labourers, housewives, and even beggars, who are furiously tapping away on their devices, largely oblivious of happenings around them.

 

The successes of projects like Notcoin, DOGE, etc, in which many earned substantial amounts of money, helped to drive its popularity. But relatively disappointing, projects like Hamster Combat, Tomarket, Goat, Memefi, etc whose listing after airdrop failed to meet expectations, have tended to dampen enthusiasm. Nonetheless, Telegram games remain very popular in the country, even as crypto adoption continues to grow.

 

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However, this comes against the backdrop of preemptive action by the government to clamp down on them to battle what it sees as part of the reasons for the rapid fall of the naira – which collapsed from N700 to the dollar in May 2023, to N1900 to the dollar at the parallel market within the first nine months of the President Bola Tinubu administration.

 

The federal government early last year began to crack down on major cryptocurrency trading platforms, such as Binance, Forextime, OctaFX, Crypto, FXTM, Coinbase, and Kraken. But the action has predictably proved futile thus far in terms of halting the trade, which in part may have informed a change of approach.

Regulation

In the third quarter of 2024, the Federal Government said it was planning to introduce licenses for providers of virtual assets, including crypto-currencies, as part of its efforts to safeguard investors; an announcement, that immediately set off spirited conversations about the future of crypto in Africa’s most populous country and largest economy, where it continues to attract mass adoptions despite government crackdown.

 

In an interview published by Bloomberg, Dr. Agama, the SEC DG, disclosed that the first set of licenses for digital services and tokenized assets could be issued as early as August 2024.

 

“Being a crypto and fintech enthusiast, I can tell you this is going to happen sooner than expected. We must support the youth of this country in harnessing the benefits that fintech offers. The market is vast and continues to grow,” Agama had said.

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The SEC DG further explained that this regulatory initiative positions Nigeria alongside other global markets, such as the European Union, South Africa, and Botswana, which have already implemented measures to regulate digital assets.

 

Days later on August 29, the SEC granted “Approval-in-Principle” to two Digital Assets Exchanges for commencement of operations under its Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme (ARIP)

 

The companies granted approvals are Busha Digital Limited, Quidax Technologies Limited. Disclosing this in a statement in Abuja, the Commission added that five other firms have been admitted to test their models and technology under the SEC’s Regulatory Incubation program, RI.

 

They are Trovotech Ltd, Wrapped CBDC Ltd, and HousingExhange.NG Ltd, Dream City Capital, and Blockvault Custodian Ltd.

 

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The Commission noted that the cohort comprises two Digital Asset Exchanges, four Digital asset Offering Platforms, and one Digital Asset Custodian.

 

“Busha operates a digital exchange that facilitates the buying and selling of crypto assets with fiat currency. Busha’s customers use the mobile and web applications to buy, sell, store, send, receive, trade and invest and make payments in crypto-currencies,” the statement said.

 

“Quidax Technologies Limited operates a cryptocurrency trading platform in Nigeria. The platform leverages blockchain technology to list and trade already issued crypto tokens (assets).

“The services are provided via a proprietary blockchain owned and controlled by Quidax. The exchange platform is both web and mobile-enabled for ease of access and use. Quidax also utilizes a digital wallet to enable its users to store, receive, and transact in a variety of crypto-currencies.”

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