Bitcoin’s rally is rolling on, with its price sitting near a record high as investors are piling into the cryptocurrency amid a storm of global economic uncertainty, a downgrade of U.S. debt and growing confidence in the forthcoming regulation of digital assets.

At the heart of this surge are several powerful catalysts, according to analysts and executives gathered at this year’s Solana Accelerate Conference. Among the top reasons for the rally: bitcoin’s rising status as a safe haven asset, mounting geopolitical instability and a wave of institutional adoption.

“Bitcoin is starting to behave as a safe haven asset, and there’s more and more instability in the world,” said Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov. “For the first time now, it’s starting to get decoupled from tech stocks. So, if you wanted to choose a second safe haven asset after gold, bitcoin would now be a logical choice.”

Adding fuel to the bitcoin rally is optimism that meaningful crypto legislation is finally within reach. (Reuters/Benoit Tessier/Illustration/File Photo / Reuters Photos)

Johann Kerbrat, senior vice president of Robinhood Crypto, echoed this sentiment, telling FOX Business that “people see bitcoin as a reserve as well. And so, when there is a bit of instability in the market or in the globe, they actually use bitcoin as a reserve currency.”

Regulation boosts confidence

Adding fuel to the rally: optimism that meaningful crypto legislation is finally within reach.

Momentum is building in Congress, with both chambers considering key regulatory frameworks for stablecoins – digital currencies pegged to traditional assets like the U.S. dollar – and market structure bills that would define how digital assets are traded and held.

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“I think in 10 days we will have it completed and through the Senate,” Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., said last week, referring to the GENIUS Act – short for “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins.”

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., in his office in the Russell Senate Office Building on July 16, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Image / Getty Images)

Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., a leading voice in House crypto policy, told FOX Business, “We have no rules on this. And so these are significant, because if we have rules about a payment stablecoin and a market structure bill… then money will come back to the U.S., innovation will come to the U.S., and we’ll be the No. 1 fintech digital assets country in the world. That’s what I want to do.”

Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., leaves a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Capitol Hill Club on Jan. 30, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Hill also emphasized the urgency and strategic importance of moving forward before lawmakers break for the summer.

“We’re looking forward to the Senate passing the GENIUS Act, seeing what it contains, how it’s structured, and how we can work together to get to the president’s desk a dollar-backed stablecoin before the August recess,” he said.

Kristen Smith, president of the Solana Policy Institute, added that support for crypto policy is cutting across party lines.

“It’s a bipartisan issue,” Smith said. This isn’t something that only Republicans or only Democrats care about. This is really an American issue. And I think that that is starting to translate into the markets with some comfort that our economy is stabilizing, that the policies are coming into place, and that this is an opportunity for growth in the crypto industry from here going forward.”

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Cryptocurrency has also made its way to the top levels of the Trump administration, with Vice President JD Vance heading to Las Vegas to deliver the keynote address at this year’s Bitcoin Conference on Wednesday.

Vice President JD Vance speaks to reporters on Jan. 30, 2025. (Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz / Reuters)

Institutional interest and ETF inflows

Further highlighting the mainstreaming of crypto, a dozen U.S. bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have attracted robust inflows, with investors pumping in about $4.2 billion so far in May.

This surge in institutional interest marks a major shift in how traditional investors approach digital assets, viewing them less as speculative bets and more as components of diversified portfolios.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that major U.S. banks are exploring partnerships with crypto firms to issue a joint stablecoin. The move comes amid growing concerns that private sector stablecoins could start to siphon off customer deposits and reshape how money moves across the financial system.

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“I think the banks want to be part of that payment space,” Hill added. “Banks have moved to real-time payments now… I think you can also predict in the future that we’ll have 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week, tokenized transactions in securities or in payments.”

With the global financial system in flux, regulatory clarity on the horizon and institutional investors entering the fold, bitcoin’s breakout could be just the beginning of a broader transformation of how value is stored and moved.

Whether bitcoin becomes the digital gold of the 21st century or something altogether different remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: the crypto world is no longer on the fringe – it’s front and center.