Investing.com-- Bitcoin’s price fell slightly on Thursday, but remained around three-month highs as speculation over a second Trump presidency, friendlier regulation and improved capital inflows boosted cryptocurrency markets over the past week.
Bitcoin slipped 1% to $67,123.0 by 09:53 ET (13:53 GMT), after briefly breaching $68,000 earlier this week. The token had broken reliably out of a tight $50,000 to $65,000 trading range seen through most of the year.
Broader cryptocurrency prices also rose on speculation over an improved regulatory outlook in the U.S., after Vice President Kamala Harris pledged a regulatory framework for the industry.
Bitcoin in particular was supported by defunct crypto exchange Mt Gox postponing its timeline for returning stolen tokens to creditors.
Bitcoin buoyed by speculation over Trump victory
Recent gains in Bitcoin came amid increasing speculation that Republican candidate Donald Trump will clinch a second term.
This was especially seen in online betting platforms such as Polymarket, which showed Trump’s odds at 58.4% over Harris’ 41.3%.
Recent media polls showed Harris maintaining a slight lead, although with about three weeks left to the ballot, it is expected to be a tight race.
Trump has maintained a largely pro-crypto stance, with his campaign also accepting donations in crypto. He had vowed at a conference earlier this year that the future of Bitcoin would be built in America.
Harris on the other hand only recently mentioned crypto, pledging to create a regulatory framework for the industry.
Strong dollar, rate cuts in focus
Still, further gains in Bitcoin were held back by a stronger dollar, as the greenback firmed on the Trump trade and as traders priced in a slower pace of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
U.S. retail sales and industrial production data due later on Thursday is set to offer more cues.
Rate cuts by other major central banks were also in focus, with the European Central Bank widely expected to cut rates later on Thursday.
Crypto price today: Altcoins slightly down
Broader crypto prices saw muted performance on Thursday.
World no.2 crypto Ether remained flat at $2,612.82, while XRP added 1%.
ADA and SOL dropped 2.7% and 1%, respectively. MATIC also lost 1%.
Among meme tokens, DOGE fell 3.%
Ethereum may eventually process 100K transactions per second, says Buterin
Ethereum could eventually process over 100,000 transactions per second (TPS), according to a roadmap shared by co-founder Vitalik Buterin in a recent blog post. This next phase, known as 'The Surge,' is a key part of the network's Dencun upgrade and lays out what users can expect.
Buterin explains that Ethereum will reach this 100,000 TPS milestone by leveraging its rollup-centric roadmap, which combines Layer 2 scaling solutions with advanced techniques like data availability sampling and data compression.
"The rollup-centric roadmap proposes a simple division of labor: the Ethereum L1 focuses on being a robust and decentralized base layer, while L2s take on the task of helping the ecosystem scale," Buterin wrote in the post.
"This is a pattern that recurs everywhere in society: the court system (L1) is not there to be ultra-fast and efficient, it's there to protect contracts and property rights, and it's up to entrepreneurs (L2) to build on top of that sturdy base layer."
Rather than simply raising Ethereum's gas limit—an approach that would risk centralizing the network by requiring more expensive hardware—Buterin suggests a more balanced approach. He advocates for optimizing gas fees and introducing an efficient bytecode format known as Ethereum Object Format (EOF) to prevent smaller nodes from being pushed out.
Buterin also addressed the current friction between Layer 2 solutions, which are crucial for Ethereum's scalability but can feel disjointed.
"Ethereum should feel like one ecosystem, not 34 different blockchains," he wrote, proposing the use of standardized chain identifiers and improved cross-L2 standards to facilitate smoother multi-chain interactions.
Ambar Warrick contributed to this report.