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Bitcoin rejoined the crypto rally on Friday amid reports that President-elect Donald Trump could release an executive order making crypto a national priority as soon as day 1 of his new term.

The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by more than 2% at $103,174.90, according to Coin Metrics. The broader crypto market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 index, was up another 1%, after a 4% increase Thursday.

Shares of exchange operators Coinbase and Robinhood advanced about 5% each. Trading activity in small cap cryptocurrencies benefits trading platforms. Appetite for smaller cap, higher risk coins has grown ahead of Trump’s inauguration, with litecoin surging 26% in the past two days.

The moves follow a Bloomberg report late Thursday that Trump could create the crypto advisory council he previously promised, giving the industry a voice within his administration. A bitcoin stockpile is part of discussions about a possible executive order that would cover several areas of crypto policy, the New York Times reported the same day.

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Bitcoin trades above $100,000 ahead of Trump’s inauguration

Coins and crypto projects outside of bitcoin arguably stand to gain more from clear and supportive policy and regulation as they’ve been more of a target of SEC lawsuits and alleged banking discrimination under the Biden administration. Some investors say bitcoin could see a rocket ship rally, however, if a national stockpile or reserve is established.

Bitcoin has been trading closely with stocks so far this year. It’s been in consolidation mode since late December, when Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell sounded an inflation alarm that subsided this week after two cool December inflation reports. Bitcoin ETFs have seen more than $1 billion in inflows in the past two days.

Investors expect any announcements from the incoming administration next week to send bitcoin higher – potentially to a new record. Heightened expectations come after warnings from Wall Street this month that although having a pro-crypto Congress and White House in 2025 is sure to be supportive for innovation in the industry and asset class, it could take a while before the market feels the impact.

“The new administration and a new SEC chairman opens the door for new opportunity in cryptocurrency innovation,” JPMorgan analyst Kenneth Worthington said in a note this week. However, he added, “we don’t see a next wave of cryptocurrency [exchange-traded product] launches as being meaningful for the crypto ecosystem given much smaller market capitalization of other tokens and far lower investor interest.”

Bitcoin’s record is $108,327.01, from Dec. 17. It’s up 9% in 2025.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

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CNBC Daily Open: It’s a boom, it’s a bubble, it’s still not enough for investors: It’s AI

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CNBC Daily Open: It's a boom, it's a bubble, it's still not enough for investors: It's AI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (L) speaks with Microsoft Chief Technology Officer and Executive VP of Artificial Intelligence Kevin Scott during the Microsoft Build conference at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on May 21, 2024. 

Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images

Investors can’t get enough of artificial intelligence, despite worries over the sector’s excessively high valuations.

The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite rose Tuesday stateside, with all three notching new intraday highs. The major averages were juiced by gains in tech. Nvidia popped nearly 5%, while Microsoft climbed roughly 2%.

Both Apple and Microsoft reached a market capitalization of over $4 trillion after their shares rose. It was the first time Apple hit that milestone, though it closed just shy of that level.

Tech companies can’t get enough of each other, either.

Nvidia announced a $1 trillion investment in Nokia, which the Finnish company said will go toward developing its AI plans. For those, like me, who remember Nokia as a company that made the most desirable and bullet-proof phones: It primarily produces cellular equipment now.

Meanwhile, with its 27% stake in OpenAI’s for-profit business, Microsoft is potentially sitting on a goldmine — provided AI finds its footing as a sustainable, revenue-generating business in the long run. OpenAI on Tuesday announced it had completed its restructuring as a nonprofit with a controlling stake in its for-profit arm.

It’s not just Microsoft. Investors who have poured money into tech could potentially gain big — as Cathie Wood of Ark Invest says, “If our expectations for AI … are correct, we are at the very beginning of a technology revolution.”

What you need to know today

And finally…

Jerome Powell, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, during the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Fall meetings at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025.

Kent Nishimura | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The Fed has a rate cut plus a bunch of other things on its plate this week. Here’s what to expect

Markets are assigning a nearly 100% probability that the Federal Open Market Committee will approve a second consecutive quarter percentage point, or 25 basis point, reduction in the federal funds rate. The overnight lending benchmark is currently targeted between 4%-4.25%.

Beyond that, policymakers are likely to debate, among other things, the future path of reductions, the challenges posed by a lack of economic data and the timetable for ending the reduction in the Fed’s asset portfolio of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities.

— Jeff Cox

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Nvidia-supplier SK Hynix third-quarter profit jumps 62% to a record high on AI-fueled memory demand

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Nvidia-supplier SK Hynix third-quarter profit jumps 62% to a record high on AI-fueled memory demand

A man walks past a logo of SK Hynix at the lobby of the company’s Bundang office in Seongnam on January 29, 2021.

Jung Yeon-Je | AFP | Getty Images

South Korea’s SK Hynix on Wednesday posted record quarterly revenue and profit, boosted by a strong demand for its high bandwidth memory used in generative AI chipsets.

Here are SK Hynix’s third-quarter results versus LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:

  • Revenue: 24.45 trillion won ($17.13 billion) vs. 24.73 trillion won
  • Operating profit: 11.38 trillion won vs. 11.39 trillion won

Revenue rose about 39% in the September quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, while operating profit surged 62%, year on year.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, revenue was up 10%, while operating profit grew 24%.

SK Hynix makes memory chips that are used to store data and can be found in everything from servers to consumer devices such as smartphones and laptops.

The company has benefited from a boom in artificial intelligence as a key supplier of high-bandwidth memory or HBM chips used to power AI data center servers. 

“As demand across the memory segment has soared due to customers’ expanding investments in AI infrastructure, SK Hynix once again surpassed the record-high performance of the previous quarter due to increased sales of high value-added products,” SK Hynix said in its earnings release. 

HBM falls into the broader category of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM — a type of semiconductor memory used to store data and program code that can be found in PCs, workstations and servers.

SK Hynix has set itself apart in the DRAM market by getting an early lead in HBM and establishing itself as the main supplier to the world’s leading AI chip designer, Nvidia

However, its main competitors, U.S.-based Micron and South Korean-based tech giant Samsung, have been working to catch up in the space.

“With the innovation of AI technology, the memory market has shifted to a new paradigm and demand has begun to spread to all product areas,” SK Hynix Chief Financial Officer Kim Woohyun said in the earnings release.

“We will continue to strengthen our AI memory leadership by responding to customer demand through market-leading products and differentiated technological capabilities,” he added.

The HBM market is expected to continue to boom over the next few years to around $43 billion by 2027, giving strong earnings leverage to memory manufacturers such as SK Hynix, MS Hwang, research director at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.

“[F]or SK Hynix to continue generating profits, it’ll be important for the company to maintain and enhance its competitive edge,” he added.

A report from Counterpoint Research earlier this month showed that SK Hynix held a leading 38% share of the DRAM market by revenue in the second quarter of the year, increasing its shares after having overtaken Samsung in the first quarter. 

The report added that the global HBM  market grew 178% year over year in the second quarter, and SK Hynix dominated the space with a 64% share.

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Celestica CEO explains the company’s role in the AI boom

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Celestica CEO explains the company's role in the AI boom

Celestica CEO Rob Mionis: If AI is a speeding freight train, we’re laying the tracks ahead of it

Celestica CEO Rob Mionis explained how his company designs and manufactures infrastructure that enables artificial intelligence in a Tuesday interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer.

“If AI is a speeding freight train, we’re laying the tracks ahead of the freight train,” Mionis said.

He pushed back against the notion that the AI boom is a bubble, saying that the technology has gone from a “nice to have” to a “must have.”

Celestica reported earnings Monday after close, managing to beat estimates and raise its full-year outlook. The stock hit a 52-week high during Tuesday’s session and closed up more than 8%. Celestica has had a huge run over the past several months, and shares are currently up 253.68% year-to-date.

Mionis described some of Celestica’s business strategies, including how the Canadian outfit chose to move away from commodity markets and into design and manufacturing. He told Cramer that choice “has paid off in spades” for his company.

Celestica’s focus on design and manufacturing enables the company to “consistently execute at scale,” he added.

He detailed Celestica’s data center work, saying the company makes high-speed networking and storage system for hyperscalers, digital native companies and other enterprise names.

Mionis praised the company’s partnership with semiconductor maker Broadcom, saying Celestica uses Broadcom’s silicon in a lot of its designs.

“What it means for us is when they launch a new piece of silicon — so the Tomahawk 6 is their 1.6 terabyte silicon — when they launch that into the marketplace, they’ll work with us to develop products, and those products end up in the major hyperscalers.”

Celestica CEO Rob Mionis goes one-on-one with Jim Cramer

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