Bitcoin (BTC) rose past $120,000 for the first time on record, taking the year-to-date gain to 28%. BTC is currently trading above $121,000 as of midday Hong Kong time, according to CoinDesk market data. The move follows President Donald Trump's decision to impose a 30% tariff on the EU and Mexico, starting Aug. 1, and marks a bullish resolution to roughly 48 hours of choppy price action that allowed overbought signals from short-duration indicators to reset to bullish. The focus now shifts to the U.S. inflation data due this week, which is expected to show the cost of living ticked up in June against the backdrop of Trump's trade war. According to FactSet, economists expect that the consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.25% on a monthly basis in June, equating to 2.6% annualized growth. The core CPI, which excludes the volatile food and energy, is forecast to have risen 0.3% monthly and 3% on an annualized basis. Risk assets, including BTC, may wobble a bit if inflation accelerates, delaying the Fed rate cut. That said, the downside could be limited given the strong momentum in terms of corporate adoption of BTC, ETF inflows and positive regulatory outlook in the U.S. According to John Glover, CEO of Ledn, BTC's rally has legs and prices could rise to $136,000 by the year-end. "We have finally broken to new highs, which confirms that the dip to $96k in late June satisfied the wave (ii) pullback (yellow line) within the larger Wave 5 (orange line)," Glover said in an email. "While this doesn’t change the ultimate target of circa $136k to complete this bull run, it does likely reduce the time it will take to complete. I was previously looking for this in Q1 of 2026, but now it looks likely to hit $136k by year-end," he added.
