Bitcoin price hits $66,000 after Trump hails economy in record State of the Union address

Bitcoin’s price surged 3% to $66,000 after US President Donald Trump’s longest-ever State of the Union address.

In the nearly two-hour speech to Congress, Trump praised America’s “roaring” economy and injected fresh optimism into crypto markets.

Crypto investors funnelled $52 billion into cryptocurrencies during the speech, CoinGecko data shows.

While Trump did not mention crypto directly, the 79-year-old top Republican lauded the broader market.

“The stock market has set 53 all-time record highs since the election,” he said. “Everyone’s up, way up.”

Trump also said that global investors have poured $18 trillion into the US economy since he took office, matching optimistic scenarios forecast by economists such as Ed Yardeni.

The optimism comes as concerns over major disruption to the economy have weighed on Bitcoin’s price, which is trading 49% below its October peak of $126,000.

Bitcoin’s price has lost some of the gains during the speech and is trading at just over $65,000 at time of reporting.

It also lands weeks after data revealed that the US job market last month was the worst of any January since 2009, when the economy was at the end of the worst crash since the Great Depression. Over 100,000 people were fired.

To be sure, analysts remain skeptical about the crypto market’s ability to snap back into its groove, despite the bullish State of the Union — there are simply too many factors dragging down the industry right now.

Aurélie Barthere, principal research analyst at Nansen, said in an investor note shared with DL News that slowing regulatory momentum and the tech sector selloff are adding pressure to Bitcoin’s downtrend.

AI jitters

Piling on the pressure is fears of massive disruption by artificial intelligence.

A dystopian report by Citrini Research released on Sunday rattled markets, especially technology stocks, which Bitcoin’s price closely follows.

The report, titled “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis,” envisions a future where AI replaces office workers and tanks the global economy as white-collar workers will be unable to pay their debts which will lead to a 38% S&P 500 crash.

BlackRock’s flagship technology fund sank another 3% after the report went viral. The ETF tracks tech leaders like Microsoft, Oracle, and Palantir, and is now down 27% year-to-date.

To be sure, not everyone is as worried about AI nuking job markets.

“Will it impact the job market? In some sense yes,” Laurens Fraussen, research analyst at crypto analysis firm Kaiko, told DL News. “It’s a matter of adapting to the technology that’s given to you, or you risk falling behind. I think we’ll get a soft landing in the sense that it’ll gradually impact the job market and change the way certain jobs currently operate.”

He also noted that if AI leads to massive job losses, then it’s only a matter of time before the US government and the Federal Reserve step in to pump capital into the sector like they did during the pandemic. That could help pump Bitcoin’s price.

“Bitcoin goes up in response to the increased money supply and concerns about currency debasement,” Fraussen said.

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, offered a similar forecast earlier in February, saying that the US central bank printing money will catapult Bitcoin’s price to new heights. When that happens, however, is anyone’s guess.

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin is up 3.9% over the past 24 hours, trading at $65,524.
• Ethereum is up 5.1% past 24 hours at $1,911.

What we’re reading

• Citrini AI report terrified Wall Street. Here’s why its vision is a boon for Bitcoin’s price — DL News
• Bitcoin to $50,000? Strategy buys top crypto despite ghoulish price forecast as Citrini AI report rattles markets — DL News
• Step Finance Shuts Down After $40 Million Exploit — Unchained
• This week’s market-moving events — Milk Road
• Crypto.com joins the club with bank charter approval. Here are the other firms it joins — DL News

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at [e-mail].