$100,000: Bitcoin's Starting Line

Bitcoin has officially broken the $100,000 mark — and this may only be the beginning.

At 10:00 AM on December 5, 2024, Bitcoin officially crossed $100,000.

Over the past year, BTC doubled in price. Over the past three years, it rose nearly sixfold. Over five years, nearly 20x. Over ten years, 500x. And over the past fifteen years — since Bitcoin Pizza Day, when 10,000 BTC bought two pizzas — Bitcoin has grown 40 million times over. For all 16 of those years, Bitcoin has always been at a new starting line.

Over those 16 years, Bitcoin went from being actively opposed by governments around the world to gradually being accepted — and even formally recognized and endorsed by sovereign nations. It went from being viewed with public skepticism to being held by a growing share of the population. In 2024 alone, crypto exchange Binance surpassed 210 million users. Every time people thought Bitcoin had peaked, it turned out to be just another new beginning.

Bitcoin's story and significance keep evolving, and so does the way people think about it.

Fifteen years ago, it was a niche experiment among cryptographers — a developer in Florida spent 10,000 BTC on two pizzas. Ten years ago, it was primarily associated with illicit activity: gambling, drugs, and money laundering. Five years ago, it — along with the broader crypto industry — began forming an entirely new financial system. That system now includes a "Crypto Nasdaq" (Ethereum), "Crypto Banks" (Tether, Ethena), a "Crypto Brokerage" (Binance), and account infrastructure (MetaMask). Each product serves tens or even hundreds of millions of users, effectively recreating traditional financial infrastructure in a more efficient, leaner, transparent, decentralized, and global way. Three years ago, the crypto industry moved beyond finance into Web3 applications, marking its new mission as the foundation of the next generation of finance and the internet.

Today, a growing number of people see Bitcoin as the new gold. Bitcoin's market cap has reached $2 trillion, surpassing silver and reaching roughly one-tenth the value of gold. Bitcoin is now recognized and endorsed by sovereign nations including the United States and Japan — and it only took 16 years to get here. Even more remarkable, the blockchain technology underlying Bitcoin has given rise to an entirely new financial and internet ecosystem, with thousands of crypto organizations driving Bitcoin's adoption and making the prospect of Bitcoin becoming a true global currency increasingly plausible.

As Bitcoin hit $100,000, everyone asked the same question: Has Bitcoin peaked? How much further can it go? Does Bitcoin have a new story to tell?

5 Billion Internet Users Have Yet to Touch Bitcoin

$100,000 is still just Bitcoin's starting line — and this time, Bitcoin will attract a new wave of buyers.

The biggest new buyers this year are undoubtedly BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, and the institutions behind it: U.S. corporations, endowments, and other institutional players.

In January 2024, the U.S. approved spot Bitcoin ETFs, enabling publicly listed companies, pension funds, institutions like BlackRock, and university endowments (such as Stanford's) to publicly purchase and hold Bitcoin through ETF vehicles. That approval triggered a massive wave of institutional buying, and within just 10 months, $100 billion had flowed into Bitcoin ETFs. Billions of dollars continue to flow into Bitcoin each month through U.S. fund companies.

Bitcoin's run from $40,000 to $100,000 was driven largely by the U.S. Bitcoin ETF approval, which gave institutions a legal on-ramp into Bitcoin. The success of those ETFs has already become a historic milestone in the ETF world.

So as Bitcoin climbs from $100,000 toward $200,000, who are the new buyers?

First, from an institutional perspective, the majority of Bitcoin purchases today still originate in the U.S. Existing Bitcoin ETFs continue pulling in billions per month with no sign of slowing. U.S. companies and institutions — and their global counterparts — will keep buying Bitcoin through these vehicles.

Globally, major economies like Japan, Europe, and China have yet to fully open Bitcoin purchasing to institutional investors. When those restrictions ease, Bitcoin will see another leap. The "Time Machine" theory holds that innovative assets and mechanisms tend to spread from the U.S. to other developed nations, then eventually to emerging markets — a pattern seen across asset classes (gold, Nasdaq listings, SPACs) and technology sectors (the internet, semiconductors, smartphones, EVs).

Second, from an everyday-user perspective, Bitcoin penetration remains extremely low. According to estimates from a16z, the well-known Silicon Valley venture fund, monthly active crypto users globally number somewhere between 30 million and 60 million. Expanding that to anyone who has ever owned crypto, a Crypto.com analysis from April 2024 put global crypto users at 610 million. But with a world population of 8.2 billion — including 5.4 billion internet users — that means roughly 5 billion people have yet to experience any crypto product.

The crypto industry is working to build a global financial system and a new internet layer accessible to everyone, just like internet products are today. With 5.4 billion internet users and only 610 million crypto users, the untapped market is enormous. The crypto industry is actively changing that, rebuilding both the financial system and the internet in the process.

When crypto becomes as widespread as the internet is today, Bitcoin will be within reach of ten times its current user base.

Finally, there is one more critical category of buyers: sovereign nations.

Following El Salvador, Bitcoin may become a reserve asset for a growing number of countries — a shift that could accelerate quickly, especially with Trump back in the White House. Major economies including the U.S., China, Japan, the EU, and the UAE could move swiftly to adopt Bitcoin as a national reserve asset, fueling another powerful rally.

There is real basis for believing large nations will buy Bitcoin directly. On November 22, Reuters reported that Trump's "Crypto Advisory Committee" planned to establish a Bitcoin reserve fund. Trump has repeatedly expressed support for Bitcoin and the crypto industry. During his campaign, he pledged a series of pro-crypto measures: adding Bitcoin to the national reserve, making the U.S. the world's crypto capital, and easing regulations. His proposals have drawn backing from political and industry figures alike — including U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis, who introduced a bill to build a strategic Bitcoin reserve with the goal of acquiring 1 million BTC over five years and holding it for at least 20 years to offset U.S. national debt.

Once the U.S. adds Bitcoin to its reserves, other nations may follow — just as they did with gold.