Crypto18 September, 20262 min read
Bitcoin Weathers Clarity Act Stalling and Fed Rate Hike, Trading Near $78,000
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Bitcoin steadied around $75,000 as Clarity Act stalled and Fed hiked rates. Bitcoin on track for quarterly gains despite September weakness and rate pressures.
5 outlets told this the same way.
Clarity Act stalls, rates hit
Bitcoin weathered a “September storm” after the Clarity Act stalled in the Senate and the Fed delivered its first rate hike in more than three years, with the coin “trading at $78,000.”
CoinDesk said the Clarity Act failed to secure the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate, attracting just 49 supporters, and that bitcoin briefly fell below $74,887 on Tuesday before stabilizing.
Bloomberg Línea described the double hit as the Senate failing to advance the bill on Tuesday and the Federal Reserve raising rates for the first time in three years on Wednesday, with bitcoin slipping as much as 1.2% to $74,985 after the midweek decision.
In the same period, Bloomberg Línea said leading crypto firms including Coinbase Global Inc. (COIN) and Circle Internet Group Inc. (CRCL) also tumbled, with two-day losses of around 16% and 20%, respectively.
Analysts read resilience
Mitchell Askew, head of Blockware Intelligence at Blockware, told CoinDesk that “Bitcoin has hardly budged at all in response to two objectively bad pieces of news,” pointing to “A 25-basis-point hike” and the CLARITY Act failing to pass. CoinDesk also quoted Askew explaining that when bad news stops affecting price it signals “seller exhaustion,” adding that “Anybody who was going to sell bitcoin based on events like these has already sold.”
Bloomberg Línea framed the market reaction differently, saying “Prices could stay fairly rangebound and even trade lower through the end of the year as we reassess the outlook,” and calling the “rate-hike shift amounts to a double blow.” Bloomberg Línea added that after the vote, open interest continued to trend lower, indicating a drop in demand from retail investors who typically use bitcoin futures contracts to place leveraged bets.
What comes next for crypto
CoinDesk said the regulatory policy outlook continues to improve after the Senate’s rejection of the CLARITY Act, noting that on Thursday the Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled its long-awaited innovation exemption for tokenized securities venues. In that same CoinDesk account, Joel Kruger, Markets Strategist at LMAX Group, said “the path of least resistance appears to be higher,” while also arguing that even a modest improvement in macro, geopolitical, or regulatory conditions could provide the catalyst for the next major leg higher.
CoinDesk warned that markets are pricing in three further quarter-point increases by April 2027, which would take the federal funds rate to 4.50%–4.75%, and it cited Sygnum’s Fabian Dori saying “I do not fully agree that rates need to fall for digital assets to” perform better. Meanwhile, Cryptonews.net highlighted a technical downside path, quoting Lark Davis that bitcoin could find initial support around $73,000 and that if this level is broken, the $67,000 level could come into play.