Bitcoin climbed back above $81,000 on Friday, up more than 6% in twenty-four hours, three days after the US Senate killed the Clarity Act. The move forced $238M of short positions on BTC into liquidation. Meanwhile, the CFTC and the SEC each pushed their own crypto rules forward on Thursday, without waiting for Congress.
Key Takeaways
- BTC touched $81,636, its highest level since September 4.
- $238M of BTC shorts were liquidated, close to $470M across the whole market.
- The CFTC sent its crypto rules to the White House as the SEC opened its innovation exemption.
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ChatGPTBitcoin Rebound Wipes Out $238M of Short Positions
Bitcoin broke back above $80,000 on Friday morning, US time, and then pushed up to $81,636, the highest print since September 4. Around 11:30 a.m. in New York, BTC changed hands at $81,192.50, a gain of 6.24% over twenty-four hours. Earlier in the week, the price had slipped below $75,000.
The pattern looks a lot like the one from early September, when Bitcoin bounced to $82K and cleared out $140M of sellers. Traders positioned for a drop were caught again. Roughly $238M of short positions on BTC were liquidated, against just $6M on the long side.
Across the market, liquidations came close to $470M over twenty-four hours, including $85M of ether shorts. With much of the leverage already flushed out over the prior weeks, every spot purchase carried more weight than usual. Bitcoin’s market capitalization rose from $1.54T to $1.62T during the session.
The rest of the market followed. Ether gained 7.47% to $2,630.48 and Solana jumped 12.66% to $113.75. On Wall Street, Coinbase closed up 11.7% and Strategy, the company formerly known as MicroStrategy, finished 16.4% higher.
The Senate Buries the Clarity Act as the CFTC and SEC Move Alone
On Tuesday, the US Senate voted 49 to 50 against the procedural motion that would have opened debate on the Clarity Act. The bill needed 60 votes to move forward. It would have set the first comprehensive federal framework for digital asset markets. Right after the vote, XRP slid 9.2%, the hardest drop among the large caps.
That outcome closes a saga that began over the summer, when the Senate first pushed its review of the Clarity Act down the road. The regulators did not sit still. On Thursday, the CFTC sent the White House office that reviews federal regulations a proposal titled “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets”.
Its content has not been made public. It is still unclear which crypto assets it covers, what an exchange would need to do to qualify, or how far the CFTC believes its authority reaches. Once the review is done, the draft goes back to the commission for a vote and a public comment period, and then a second vote before it can take effect.
The same day, the SEC released its order granting an innovation exemption for tokenized stock trading. For five years, it lets a new category of venue trade listed shares in token form through automated market makers. Both agencies moved on the same day, with no new vote from Congress in sight.
On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee also advanced the American Reserve Modernization Act by 28 votes to 21. The bill tells the Treasury to keep its holdings in a secure Bitcoin storage facility and to add more over five years through budget-neutral means. It carries the twenty-year lockup already written into the plan to freeze America’s bitcoin that surfaced in May. No matching bill has cleared the Senate.
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Bitcoin Faces Long Yields Near 5% and a Tightening Fed
The rebound came together in a tighter monetary backdrop. On Wednesday, the Fed raised rates for the first time since 2023, lifting its target range to 3.75% to 4.00%. On Thursday, the Bank of Japan followed with a hike to 1.25%, a 31-year high.
The US ten-year Treasury yield climbed above 5% before easing to 4.96%, and the dollar index hovered near 100.5. On Friday, the ten-year slipping back under 5% and Brent crude easing below $103 a barrel helped the crypto advance, cooling some of the inflation worries that followed the Fed decision.
In the short term, derivatives remain the gauge to watch. The liquidation wave cleared a chunk of the short side, and the Bitcoin rebound arrived after several weeks of shrinking leverage. A fresh push in long yields above 5% would put risk assets back under pressure.
Over the coming months, the pace of the regulators matters most. The CFTC proposal still has to clear the White House review, a vote and a comment period. The SEC exemption comes with volume caps and a limited list of symbols, and the reserve bill still waits on the Senate. None of what lifted Bitcoin on Friday has become a final rule yet.
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