Bitcoin (BTC), which had traded in a tight range for most of Wednesday, suddenly surged toward $100,000 during the U.S. afternoon, nearing a milestone price that it's been unable to bust through for weeks.

After briefly dipping below $95,000 around midday, BTC later jumped nearly 5%, hitting a $99,177 session high, CoinDesk data shows. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was up 3.2% in the past 24 hours, outperforming the broader market benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index's 1.3% gain.

The price action happened as the so-called "Coinbase Premium," a key metric to gauge BTC demand among U.S. investors, spiked to rarely seen highs.

TradingView data shows that BTC was at times over $300 pricier on Coinbase relative to Binance during the price surge, suggesting that the rally was perhaps driven by strong demand by American market participants.

The Coinbase Premium measures the price difference for spot BTC on Coinbase, widely used by U.S. customers and many institutional market participants, compared to prices on offshore Binance, the leading exchange by trading volume that's popular among retail users.

The rally happened after — although likely not because of — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell compared bitcoin to a digital version of gold and a competitor of the precious metal during an appearance at the New York Times DealBook event on Wednesday. Prices also jumped as Donald Trump nominated Paul Atkins, who is viewed as being friendly to crypto, to run the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Bitcoin has been battling the $100,000 milestone for the past two weeks, a rally fueled by optimism about Trump's election. Heavy profit-taking has prevented it from breaking through. History, however, suggests that BTC may require multiple attempts to pierce through the psychologically key level, CoinDesk senior analyst James Van Straten pointed out.

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