Bitcoin (BTC) Price Breaks $100K for the First Time Since February, Targeting $120K This Quarter

Bitcoin reclaimed the six-figure mark on Thursday, crossing $100,000 for the first time in three months.

Bitcoin price rose past the $100,000 mark on Thursday for the first time since February as risk assets continued to recover and trade optimism grew.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency has largely been moving in tandem with other risk assets, rising alongside stocks as markets absorbed the historic April sell-off in response to tariffs.

However, analysts suggest that the worst of the trade war worries may be behind us, setting the stage for cryptocurrency prices to continue climbing as the threat of tariffs recedes.

With less urgency on tariffs, investors may prefer riskier assets like bitcoin over safe havens like the US dollar and Treasurys, said analysts at Standard Chartered.

Inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs surged to $5.3 billion over the past three weeks, highlighting ballooning demand for the token since mid April, the bank said.

Meanwhile, New Hampshire and Arizona introduced the country’s first crypto reserves this week. But to Zack Shapiro, head of policy at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, the impact of state crypto reserves is likely to be small compared to Wall Street’s soaring appetite.

Institutional interest is helping send bitcoin higher, as companies have entered something on an “arms race” to acquire a meaningful stake, he told BI. Strategy, at the forefront of this effort, is now funding a plan to spend $84 billion on more bitcoin acquisitions, Standard Chartered wrote.

Given these factors, bitcoin should make new highs this quarter, the bank’s global head of digital assets research wrote on Thursday. The bank has predicted the token to hit $120,000 in the second quarter but said in the note that the target might be too low.

But others think that while progress on trade gives bitcoin fuel for more gains in the near term, heightened volatility is still a risk for traders as tariff uncertainty stays high.

“Plus, at the moment, BTC is rallying on low volume, which is a recipe for short-term volatility,” Puckrin said.