Bitcoin Bounces to $98K as Charles Hoskinson Predicts 'Crypto's Year' in 2025

The past 24 hours have been marked by bullish postings on social media, with notable figures voicing positive outlooks on the cryptocurrency market that have worked their way into prices.

Bitcoin price rose on Wednesday morning as bullish social media postings helped propel crypto prices higher.

Bitcoin rose to over $98,000 from around $96,900, as President Donald Trump's son Eric encouraged family-linked World Liberty Financial to invest in the largest cryptocurrency.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson was among those painting an optimistic picture. "To give you a sense of how big the upcoming bull market is for crypto, we just absorbed a downturn that was larger than the collapse of Luna or FTX and have already nearly recovered: 710 billion in losses and 740,000 traders liquidated in 24 hours. 2025 is Crypto's year," Hoskinson posted.

Cardano's ADA token rose 4% and other major altcoins including XRP, SOL and ETH posted similar gains, CoinDesk data show.

As for ether, while the analyst community remains bearish, institutions seem to be buying it up. Data tracked by on-chain sleuth Lookonchain shows in the past two days a trading firm withdrew 62,381 coins from centralized exchanges, moving them to Coinbase Prime. Market maker Wintermute noted strong over-the-counter demand for ether early this week.

In other news, Conor Grogan, a director of Coinbase, speculated that crypto exchange Kraken may know Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto's real identity. Nakamoto may own 1.096 million BTC, with a paper wealth exceeding Bill Gates, Grogan said. A bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate to regulate stablecoins, which could boost demand for U.S. Treasuries and "spur financial innovation," FxPro's chief market analyst, Alex Kuptsikevich, said.

On the macro front, China-sensitive currencies like the Australian and New Zealand dollars are again weak against the U.S. dollar, but remain in recent ranges, indicating that markets do not expect a long, drawn-out U.S.-China trade war. Trump, however, is in no hurry to call President Xi Jinping and that could cap gains in risk assets for now.

The U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that the Trump administration wants to lower the U.S. Treasury yield, which could bode well for risk assets. Even so, the 10-year rate may spike higher if Thursday's weekly U.S. jobless claims and fourth-quarter Unit Labor Costs paint a positive picture of the economy. That could arrest BTC's upswing. Stay alert!