“Make Bitcoin Great Again” hats displayed for sale at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee, July 27, 2024.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The price of bitcoin is tracking for one of its best months of the year after former President Donald Trump’s election victory catapulted the flagship cryptocurrency to new records consistently throughout the month.
Bitcoin is on pace to post a 38% gain for November, according to Coin Metrics, which would make the month its best since February, when it gained 45% following the launch of spot bitcoin ETFs. That was also ahead of its first new record of the year since November 2021.
Bitcoin climbs to best month since February
On an intraday basis, bitcoin was last higher by more than 2% at $97,081.81. Earlier, it traded as high as $98,722.00. Coinbase fell 4.75%, while bitcoin proxies MicroStrategy and Mara Holdings gained 0.67% and 1.86%, respectively.
Investors in November were pricing in Trump’s second presidency. During his re-election campaign this year, he pitched himself to Americans as the candidate who would bring the crypto industry out of a dark period defined for many by the absence of clear digital assets regulation and the regulation-by-enforcement approach the Securities and Exchange Commission, under Chair Gary Gensler, has taken toward crypto businesses.
Trump’s victory sent bitcoin rallying to as high as just a couple hundred dollars shy of the highly anticipated $100,000 milestone. While another Trump term is expected to add another layer of legitimacy to the young crypto industry, it also serves as a macro catalyst, implying larger budget deficits, potentially more inflation and changes to the international role of the dollar — all things that would have a positive impact on the price of bitcoin.
After the election, bitcoin ETFs, led by BlackRock’s popular IBIT fund, registered strong inflows — including their largest day of inflows ever at one point — initially offsetting sell pressure from long-term holders who took profits at new highs. In the same period, options on bitcoin ETFs began trading, ushering in a new way to trade and speculate on the price of bitcoin.
Bulls expect bitcoin’s price to reach $100,000 by the end of 2024 and potentially double by the end of 2025. While the outcome of the U.S. election boosted the price in the short term, many investors agree its impact as a bitcoin catalyst will stay behind in 2024. The coin was already largely derisked from a regulatory perspective, there’s little uncertainty about how it trades or its role as digital gold, and investors are relying on its fundamentals to keep taking the price higher.
Specifically, between the reduction in bitcoin’s supply after this year’s April halving and the growing demand for bitcoin by institutions, as well as by states and countries as a treasury reserve asset, the price is expected to soar. Bitcoin’s cycle peaks usually take at least a year after the halving to come.
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Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, speaks on a panel titled Power, Purpose, and the New American Century at the Hill and Valley Forum at the U.S. Capitol on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
Palantir CEO Alex Karp offered up another batch of colorful commentary to investors alongside the data analytics company’s first-quarter earnings.
In a letter to shareholders, Karp quoted his own book and some significant historical figures — including St. Augustine and President Richard Nixon — and the New Testament as he touted the company’s artificial intelligence-fueled growth and commitment toward equipping and enhancing U.S. defense interests.
“Our financial performance, that crude yardstick by which the market attempts to measure worth in this world, continues to exceed many of our greatest expectations,” he wrote.
The eccentric technology billionaire has become widely known over the years for his energetic interviews and flowing shareholder letters that often incorporate philosophy, ethics and unconventional language.
His letters often read like an essay or dissertation, broken down into parts.
Tech and military
“We, the heretics, this motley band of characters, were cast out and nearly discarded by Silicon Valley. And yet there are signs that some within the Valley have now turned a corner and begun following our lead. We note only that our commitment to building software for the U.S. military, to those whom we have asked to step into harm’s way, remains steadfast, when such a commitment is fashionable and convenient, and when it is not.”
St. Augustine
Karp quoted philosopher and theologian St. Augustine in his case for defending the U.S.
“All men are to be loved equally,” he wrote. “But since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.”
Weltanschauung
In highlighting the company’s culture, Karp likened the environment to a Weltanschauung “nation that is bound together by a short but evolving history and patterns of discourse and shared beliefs” and quoted the New Testament.
“There is no question that both cultures and companies, including the one we have built, must over a long period of time be judged ‘by their fruits.’ Matt. 7:16,”
‘Cultural elites’
Karp cited French author Michel Houellebecq in a section about the “entrenched and resilient” cultural aristocracy of the learned class.
“Nobility had nothing to explain their right to stay in power, apart from their birth. … Contemporary elites claim intellectual and moral superiority.”
President Nixon
Karp concluded his letter with a call to action for rooting out the “cynics and the skeptics,” quoting an excerpt from President Nixon’s 1974 resignation speech.
“Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don’t win, unless you hate them. And then, you destroy yourself.”
Alex Karp, chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc., speaks during the AIPCon conference in Palo Alto, California, US, on March 13, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Palantir boosted its revenue guidance Monday as the artificial intelligence software company saw commercial and government revenue boom.
Shares fell about 5% after the bell.
Here’s how the company did compared with LSEG consensus estimates:
Earnings per share: 13 cents adjusted vs. 13 cents expected
Revenue: $884 million vs. $863 million expected
“We are delivering the operating system for the modern enterprise in the era of AI,” CEO Alex Karp wrote in an earnings release Monday, adding that the company is in the “middle of a tectonic shift in the adoption” of its software.
The defense technology company said that its commercial revenues grew 71% from a year ago to $255 million, while its government segment sales jumped 45% to $373 million. The company is forecasting that U.S. commercial revenues will top $1.178 billion this year.
Karp attributed Palantir’s government sector growth to greater U.S. defense sector adoption of its tools. He said that demand for large language models and the software supporting it has “turned into a stampede.”
Palantir’s revenues grew 39% from $634.3 million in the year-ago period. Net income rose to about $214 million, or 8 cents per share, from roughly $105.5 million, or 4 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. U.S revenues jumped 55% to $628 million, Palantir said.
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The company, which provides AI software and technology solutions for governments and corporations, also hiked its full-year revenue outlook to between $3.89 billion and $3.90 billion. During its last earnings report, Palantir projected that full-year revenues would range between $3.74 billion and $3.76 billion. The company expects revenues to range between $934 million and $938 million in the current quarter.
“We believe our results are indicative of a revolution sweeping across our business and industry,” Karp wrote in a letter to shareholders.
Palantir shares have defied 2025’s broad downtrend in technology stocks. The stock is up 64% this year, benefitting from its key defense contracts and President Donald Trump’s effort to cut federal spending with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency. Palantir is also the best performer in the S&P 500.
The company also boosted its adjusted free cash flow outlook for the year to between $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion. Adjusted income for operations is expected to range between $1.711 billion and $1.723 billion.
Palantir said it closed 139 deals totaling at least $1 million during the period, 51 of which topped at least $5 million. Palantir said 31 deals exceeded $10 million.
A Waymo self-driving vehicle seen in Phoenix, Arizona, on Feb. 27, 2025.
Leslie Josephs | CNBC
Alphabet-owned Waymo and the auto manufacturing giant Magna International plan to double robotaxi production at their new plant in Mesa, Arizona, by the end of 2026, the companies announced Monday.
The “Waymo Driver Integration Plant,” a 239,000 square foot facility outside of Phoenix, will assemble more than 2,000 Jaguar I-PACE robotaxis, the Alphabet company said in a statement. Waymo will add those self-driving vehicles to its existing fleet that already includes around 1,500 robotaxis.
The plant will be “capable of building tens of thousands of fully autonomous Waymo vehicles per year,” when it is fully built out, Waymo said. The company also said it plans to build its more advanced Geely Zeekr RT robotaxis that feature its “6th-generation Waymo Driver” technology later this year at the plant.
Waymo and Magna opened the Mesa plant in October, Forbes reported Monday.
The Alphabet-owned company started its commercial robotaxi service in Phoenix in 2020 and now calls the area its domestic manufacturing home.
Already, Waymo is conducting 250,000 paid, driverless rides per week across its service areas in Austin, the San Francisco Bay area, Los Angeles and Phoenix, and the company is planning to begin serving the Atlanta; Miami; and Washington, D.C., markets in 2026.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai last month said Waymo has not strictly defined its long-term business model yet, and there is “future optionality around personal ownership” of vehicles equipped with Waymo’s self-driving technology. A week later, Waymo and Toyota announced a preliminary partnership to potentially bring the self-driving tech to personally owned vehicles.
A would-be Waymo competitor, Tesla has said it plans to launch a robotaxi service in Austin in June using the company’s Model Y SUVs and its Unsupervised Full Self-Driving technology.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has criticized Waymo’s approach to driverless tech, saying the cars by his competitor cost “way more money” than his company’s.
Waymo systems employ more sophisticated and expensive sensors than Tesla vehicles do. Waymo vehicles rely on radar and lidar sensors alongside cameras and sonar to get around. Tesla’s systems mostly rely on cameras.
However, Waymo has beat Tesla to the market with its robotaxis, and now stands to more than double its U.S. fleet by the end of 2026. Tesla does not yet offer vehicles that are safe to use without a human at the wheel ready to steer or brake at any time.