Bitcoin Rally Pushes BTC Past $80,000 on Friday

The Bitcoin rally is back on track. The world's largest cryptocurrency climbed past the $80,000 mark on Friday morning, capping three straight days of gains in a week that gave traders every reason to sell. The Wall Street Journal reported that Bitcoin recently traded at $80,587 on Friday morning, up more than 5% from its 4 p.m. ET level on Thursday, lifting shares of crypto-linked stocks along the way.

This rally is a study in defiance. The week delivered two of the harshest headlines risk assets can face: a major piece of U.S. crypto legislation collapsed in the Senate, and the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since July 2023. Bitcoin barely flinched at either.

Two blows the Bitcoin rally shrugged off

On Tuesday, the Clarity Act — a bill meant to settle how digital assets are regulated in the United States — failed to secure the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate, attracting just 49 supporters. Bitcoin briefly fell below $74,887 on the news, then stabilized within hours. The relatively contained sell-off suggested that traders had already priced in much of the risk of failure, according to CoinDesk's market analysis.

The next day, the Federal Reserve delivered a 25-basis-point rate hike, taking its benchmark to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%. It was the Fed's first increase in more than three years, and analysts widely treated it as a headwind for crypto and other risk assets. Global tightening added to the pressure: the Bank of Japan lifted its benchmark borrowing cost to a 31-year high, the Bank of England held steady, and the Dollar Index pushed above 100, its highest level in over a month. Sustained dollar strength typically tightens financial conditions and weighs on risk assets, which makes the ongoing rally all the more notable.

"What stands out to me is that Bitcoin has hardly budged at all in response to two objectively bad pieces of news. A 25-basis-point hike and the CLARITY Act failing to pass are both headlines that, in a different market environment, would have sent price meaningfully lower. Instead, we got basically nothing," Mitchell Askew, head of Blockware Intelligence at Blockware, said in an email cited by CoinDesk.

Context makes this Bitcoin rally more striking. Bitcoin had risen about 25% in August to about its August peak, so September was widely expected to give back much of those gains. The month has delivered an average loss of roughly 3% since 2013, making it Bitcoin's historically weakest month. Instead, Bitcoin is down just 1.5% this month. With under two weeks remaining, it is up about 32% for the quarter, putting it on course for its first positive quarterly close since the third quarter of 2025, according to CoinDesk.

The catalyst: the SEC's tokenization exemption

The rally found its spark on Thursday, when the Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled a long-awaited innovation exemption for tokenized securities venues. The move allows qualifying platforms to facilitate onchain trading of stocks under specified conditions — a policy opening the crypto industry has been seeking for years, as the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has also taken steps to establish rules for crypto transactions and markets, adding to the sense that regulators are building frameworks even without new legislation from Congress. "The failure to advance the legislation delays a statutory framework, but it does not prevent the SEC and CFTC from continuing to provide guidance under existing authority, leaving an important regulatory pathway open," Joel Kruger, markets strategist at LMAX Group, noted in the CoinDesk analysis.

Real money followed the news, fueling the Bitcoin rally further. A group of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds offered by firms including BlackRock registered heavy net inflows on Thursday, snapping a two-day streak of net outflows, according to JPMorgan data cited by the Journal. That demand, combined with relief over the SEC's exemption, helped power Friday's breakout and lifted crypto-linked equities with it.

Some analysts argue that higher rates themselves are being misread as bearish for Bitcoin. "It's not a one-way street. You see yields rising, and at the same time Bitcoin and gold outperforming. If rising rates are an indication of debasement risk and sovereign counterparty risk, then for store of value assets that is actually a positive driver," Fabian Dori, chief investment officer at Sygnum Bank, said in an email to CoinDesk.

Where Bitcoin goes from here

Traders are now watching whether Bitcoin can hold the level it reclaimed this week.

A Friday note from Coinbase Research put the next major resistance zone at fresh record highs, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

Should the rally lose steam and slip back below key support, Coinbase warned that a deeper pullback could follow.

Seasonality offers little comfort in the immediate term. Bitcoin has historically fallen an average of 2.5% in the year's 38th week, recording gains on just four occasions, according to Coinglass data. But the same seasonal pattern turns favorable as the final quarter begins: Bitcoin on average rises about 77% in the fourth quarter, according to CoinDesk's data.

Coinbase added that a deeper slide could retest this year's lows.

Kruger summarized the setup in terms of momentum: "If the market has been this resilient when the news flow has been challenging, even a modest improvement in macro, geopolitical or regulatory conditions could provide the catalyst for the next major leg higher." For Bitcoin, the takeaway this week is that the path of least resistance now appears to point upward, with the token holding above that threshold despite legislative setbacks, rising oil prices, tighter monetary policy, and a stronger dollar. For more on the forces shaping digital assets, see GenZ NewZ's crypto coverage and our guide for young investors.