Pure Bitcoin-Treasury Vehicles

In a weekly report published on September 16, CryptoQuant assessed the current Bitcoin market as a "cooling bull market." After its recent rally, Bitcoin entered a range of $76,000 to $82,000 and is now trading near the lower end of that band, while its bullish score index fell from 80 during the uptrend to 60. Weakness in US investor demand is also clear: the Coinbase Premium has slipped back into negative territory as Bitcoin corrects from around $80,000, and a recovery in spot demand is seen as essential for a sustained advance. Ethereum exchange inflows surged in late August and around September 10, briefly reaching 1.6 million to 1.7 million ETH, while altcoin exchange inflow transactions hit 56,000 on September 8, the highest level in about nine months. Bitcoin exchange inflows, by contrast, have been calm; they briefly rose to about 53,000 BTC when prices climbed to $82,000 but have since declined, indicating that large-scale selling is not continuing. The key price level ahead is around $70,000, where the 200-day moving average sits; a break below that would bring $62,000 to $65,000 into focus as the next major support.

This week, Bitcoin strengthened its downward trend following the US FOMC rate hike, military tensions between the United States and Iran, and the rejection of the US CLARITY Act's move to deliberation, with the price falling to around $75,000, or roughly 11.7 million yen. Next week, a stock market correction triggered by the US rate hike shift and the US-Iran situation are expected to remain a drag, with the market likely probing lower levels. On the other hand, expectations for large AI-related IPOs and practical progress in crypto asset regulation could help support the market. For the near-term price range, the upside is seen at $80,000, or about 12.48 million yen, while the downside is seen at $70,000, or about 10.92 million yen.

Goldman Sachs reversed its Federal Reserve rate forecast twice in four days, telling clients on the morning of September 15, 2026 that it expected a hike the next day but not another one as its baseline, then shifting within hours of the September 16 decision to call for another 25-basis-point increase in October. The second change followed the Fed's updated rate projections, higher inflation forecasts, and Chair Kevin Warsh's comments on financial conditions. The Federal Open Market Committee voted 12-0 to raise its target range by 25 basis points to 3.75%-4.00%, the first hike since 2023, and the dot plot showed 16 of 18 officials expecting at least one more hike this year while four projected two additional increases. The Fed also raised its 2026 headline Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation forecast to 3.7% and lifted its core inflation forecast. Bitcoin is trading near $76,300, up roughly 18% over the past month but about 34% below its level a year ago, while XRP is near $1.29 after gaining roughly 28% over the past month and remains about 56% lower year over year. An October hike would reach markets with less time to adjust than after September's fully priced move, and the 10-year Treasury yield crossed 5% this week for the first time since 2007.

Tom Lee said on September 15 that the fourth quarter could bring one of the biggest rallies of our lifetime, forecasting the S&P 500 to clear 8,200 by year-end, but the Federal Reserve raised rates less than 24 hours later and left the door open to another hike. Ed Yardeni cut his year-end S&P 500 target to 7,900 from 8,400 the next day, moved the old target to mid-2027, and raised his bearish-scenario odds to 30% from 20%, citing higher energy prices and a 10-year Treasury yield that hit 5.00% on September 15. Bitcoin trades at $76,600, down 34% from $116,484 a year ago and needing roughly a 53% gain to return to that level, while XRP at $1.30 is down 56% from $3.09 and would need more than a 130% gain to top $3, and Ethereum at $2,470 needs a 100% gain. Bitcoin's three-month correlation with the Nasdaq 100 has fallen sharply while its relationship with gold has climbed to its highest level in years, weakening the old assumption that crypto simply follows tech stocks. Strategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin treasury, holds 846,000 BTC and reported an $8.32 billion unrealized loss in its Q2 results in the July 30, 2026 8-K.

The House Ways and Means Committee advanced the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act by a bipartisan 38 to 5 vote, one day after the Senate rejected the CLARITY Act on September 15. The bill creates a de minimis exemption for network or transaction fees of $10 or less, though it does not exempt the underlying purchase, so buying a coffee with Bitcoin would still trigger a capital-gains calculation while the blockchain fee could be exempt; the exemption would not apply to service providers processing transactions for others. The bill also extends wash-sale rules to widely traded digital assets, ending the practice of selling Bitcoin at a loss and immediately repurchasing it to offset gains, and it establishes tax treatment for stablecoins, lending, mining, and staking. Representative Steven Horsford pushed for the small-transaction exemption during committee consideration, while an earlier proposal to defer taxes on mining and staking income until the assets were sold was dropped from the version that advanced. Representative Lloyd Doggett opposed the bill, arguing its provisions favor the crypto industry over broader taxpayer priorities, and no full House vote has been scheduled, with a larger year-end tax package a possible route.

Strategy's preferred stock, known as Stretch, has climbed back near its $100 U.S. par value following a series of aggressive buybacks by the cryptocurrency acquirer. The preferred stock, which trades under the ticker STRC, closed at $97.07 U.S. per share on Sept. 17, up from under $75 U.S. at the end of June. Strategy has said it is focused on returning the preferred stock to its $100 U.S. par value. To that end, the company repurchased nearly 9.96 million preferred shares at a cost of $950.8 million U.S. at the end of July, and more recently bought another 1,420,467 shares between Sept. 8 and Sept. 13 for $139.3 million U.S. In all, Strategy has bought back its preferred stock on eight occasions since the end of June. The preferred stock carries a 12% annualized dividend yield and pays a distribution of $0.50 U.S. per share twice a month. Some investors have criticized the company's focus on the preferred stock and maintaining its par value, arguing it has diverted attention from accumulating Bitcoin, and Strategy has held off on Bitcoin purchases while buying back the preferred stock, even selling some BTC at a loss in recent months to raise cash. MSTR stock has declined 62% over the last 12 months to trade at $126.18 U.S. per share.

The SEC rejected a nineteenth XRP short ETF while $1.11 billion flowed out of regulated spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs over just 48 hours. The two-day institutional outflow followed a synchronized shock: an unexpected Federal Reserve rate hike and the Senate's blocking of the CLARITY Act, which together triggered panic selling. The crypto market is now attempting a fragile relief bounce this morning as it tries to stabilize after the large-scale exit of institutional capital.

Bitcoin fell to $74,913, a daily drop of about 4.3%, after the Senate voted 49 to 50 against cloture on a motion to proceed with debate on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, known as the CLARITY Act. Cloture required 60 votes, but four Republican senators joined Democrats in opposition, leaving the measure 11 votes short. The vote effectively stalls the bill after months of negotiations over a U.S. digital asset regulatory framework, and the odds of approval in 2026 on Polymarket plunged to 5% by early Wednesday. Across the crypto market, liquidations reached about $660 million, of which long positions accounted for $571.7 million, the largest long liquidation event since August 22. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows of $450.4 million, the largest single-day withdrawal since late June.

On the 15th, the US Senate rejected a cloture motion on a motion to begin debate on the Clarity Act, a cryptocurrency regulation bill, by a vote of 49 to 50, falling far short of the 60 votes needed. In response, Coinbase shares fell about 10%, Circle shares about 11%, and Strategy shares about 5%. Saxo Bank investment strategist Ruben Dalfovo noted in a September 16 report that the risks facing the three companies differ, and analyzed that Coinbase is most directly affected by the Clarity Act's progress. According to him, Coinbase posted a record share of crypto trading in the second quarter, and the average USDC balance held within its services reached 20 billion dollars. Circle's main risk factors, meanwhile, are USDC adoption and interest rates, while Strategy's are the bitcoin price and its funding structure. The Senate is scheduled to adjourn on December 18, and Republican Tom Tillis has filed a motion to reconsider, but Bernstein sees little chance of a revote and expects the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to move quickly to formulate rules.

The U.S. Federal Reserve decided at its September 16 Federal Open Market Committee meeting to raise the policy rate by 0.25 percentage points to 3.75–4.00%. The hike is the first in about three years, since July 2023, and the vote was unanimous at 12-0. Fed Chair Warsh said at a press conference that 'the plain fact is that inflation is too high, and it has stayed that way for too long,' explaining that the rate increase is a step to return inflation to the 2% target more quickly. In the latest economic projections, the median forecast for real GDP growth is 2.3% in 2026 and 2.4% in 2027, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 4.1% from 2026 through 2029. In the dot plot, 16 of the 18 FOMC participants expect at least one more rate hike during 2026, and the median policy rate came to 4.1% at the end of 2026, 4.1% at the end of 2027, and 3.9% at the end of 2028. Bitcoin swung sharply between 75,000 and 76,500 dollars during the press conference, and going forward the focus will be not only on further rate hikes but also on U.S. long-term yields, physical demand, and the profit-and-loss positions of short-term holders.

The Federal Reserve unanimously voted to raise its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points, bringing the new target range to 3.75% to 4.00%. The unanimous vote marks the central bank's first rate hike in years, and Bitcoin reacted to the decision. The new target range of 3.75% to 4.00% represents a quarter-point increase from the prior level.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $450.4 million in combined net outflows on Sep. 15, erasing the prior session's $159.9 million inflow, after the Senate failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Fidelity's FBTC led the withdrawals at $214.8 million, followed by BlackRock's IBIT at $161.7 million and Grayscale's GBTC at $44.1 million, with IBIT and FBTC together accounting for roughly $376.5 million of the redemptions. The CLARITY Act fell short of the 60 votes needed to proceed, drawing only 50 in favor, with four Republican senators joining Democrats in opposition; Senator Thom Tillis changed his vote as a procedural step that preserves the possibility of reconsideration. The bill was intended to create a federal market structure for digital assets and clarify responsibilities between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Despite the outflow, net flows for September remained marginally positive at about $16.8 million, and markets were also bracing for a Federal Reserve decision, with a rate increase widely expected.

Bitcoin fell to around $75,800 on September 16, losing roughly 1.5%, after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, a market structure bill that would divide U.S. crypto oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The decline was far smaller than the losses suffered by other crypto assets, with XRP down nearly 8%, Ethereum down about 3% and Solana down 3.5%, while Coinbase dropped 8.65% as the regulatory disappointment landed hardest on crypto intermediaries rather than on Bitcoin itself. Rachael Lucas of BTC Markets said the legislation was never the binding constraint for Bitcoin, and U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, which hold about 6.35% of Bitcoin's circulating supply, faced no immediate rule change because they already operate under existing SEC rules. Macro pressure was already building before the vote, with Brent crude closing at $108.75 and WTI at $105.83 after Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline, the 10-year Treasury yield touching its highest intraday level since 2007, and CME FedWatch putting the odds of a 25-basis-point hike at the September 16 meeting between 88% and 94%. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $462.7 million of outflows over the four days through the week ending September 11, followed by a $160 million net inflow on September 14 and roughly $450 million of outflows on September 15, leaving traders watching $78,189 as the level that would signal the market is pricing out the regulatory discount, with $75,000, $74,000 and $72,000 as the key levels below.

Bitcoin is trading near $76,000, down 1% over the past 24 hours and roughly 13% year-to-date, with 15 days left before the fourth quarter begins and the Federal Reserve set to deliver its first rate hike in three years. The Fed's decision, due at 2:00 p.m. ET alongside a new dot plot, is expected to lift the upper end of the federal funds rate from 3.75% to 4.00%, while Bank of America expects further hikes in October and December that would take rates to a 4.25% to 4.50% range by year-end, a more aggressive path than current futures pricing reflects. Bitcoin's market cap sits at $1.52 trillion, its 24-hour volume has risen roughly 28% to $37.63 billion, and its realized price is $53,600, leaving the average holder well above cost. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $462.7 million in net outflows over the four days ending September 11, interrupting a $3.8 billion three-week inflow streak, though flows turned positive again on September 14. Prediction markets put Bitcoin's year-end price near its 50-week moving average of about $81,000, with Kalshi's September 15 market pricing the December 31 close near $81,000 and Polymarket giving Bitcoin a 51% chance of touching $90,000 before year-end and a 26% chance of touching $100,000.

The Federal Reserve will announce its rate decision at 2 PM ET on September 16, 2026, with the CME FedWatch tool putting the probability of a 25 basis point increase at 92%, which would lift the target range from 3.50%-3.75% to 3.75%-4.00% and mark the first rate increase since 2023. The decision comes a day after the Senate blocked the CLARITY Act, and ahead of it Bitcoin is trading near $75,903, down 1.44% over 24 hours, XRP is at approximately $1.29, down 7.98%, and Ethereum is at about $2,404, down 3.18%. The Fed has held its target range for five consecutive meetings, with three members dissenting in favor of a hike in July, while August inflation rose 3.4% year over year and core inflation stood at 2.4%. Standard Chartered analysts John Davies and Steve Englander have urged waiting, arguing market expectations have inflated on limited incoming data, a caution echoed by Kevin Warsh, who has expressed skepticism about the dot plot and excluded his own forecast from the June release. Analysts including BMO and Franklin Templeton's Jeff Schulze expect multiple increases ahead, and traders are watching Bitcoin's $74,000 to $78,189 range, with a close below $74,000 confirming a hawkish reading and a close above $78,189 signaling an unexpected hold.

Coinbase Global shares rose 1% to $174 in early Wednesday trading even after the U.S. Senate rejected cloture on the Clarity Act, the digital-asset market structure bill, by a tally of 50 in favor and 49 against, short of the 60 votes needed to advance. Four Republican senators joined Democrats in voting against the measure, which the president had publicly backed and which the crypto industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying to pass. Strategy stock climbed 1% to $130.66 and Robinhood Markets rose 0.57% to $111.08, with both names having already priced in a defeat before the vote. The iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF slipped 0.2% to $43.03 while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust gained 0.35% to $760.03, leaving the Bitcoin proxy lower even as crypto equities and the broad tape traded green. With Congress heading toward recess ahead of the midterms, regulatory momentum for the sector may shift from legislation to actions by the SEC and the CFTC, while the next catalysts for Strategy and Robinhood run through Bitcoin's price and the Federal Reserve decision later today.

Bitcoin's slide below $76,000 sparked the largest short-term holder capitulation event since September, as traders reacted to the U.S. Senate's failure to advance the CLARITY Act. The CLARITY Act has not been advanced by the Senate. The decline marked the most significant shakeout among short-term holders in months.

Strategy Inc. paused Bitcoin purchases for a second straight week, redirecting company reserves toward buybacks of its STRC preferred shares. The firm has directed US$139.3m into STRC preferred repurchases under a US$2b framework, a move that leans into its digital credit story as concerns build around its capital structure and the sustainability of the program. Strategy operates as a bitcoin treasury business within the software sector, using its US$52.6b scale to manage digital asset exposure across the US and several international regions. Critics are questioning whether ongoing buybacks funded from internal resources can be maintained without reshaping Strategy's broader capital framework, keeping attention on payout obligations, refinancing options and the trade off between supporting STRC pricing and preserving dry powder for future BTC or AI initiatives. The next earnings release capturing this buyback window is the clearest checkpoint, with focus on updated STRC outstanding balances, preferred dividend coverage, remaining authorization under the repurchase program, and any change in Strategy's stance on resuming Bitcoin purchases alongside its AI and Mosaic partnership updates.

Capital Research and Management Company, formerly the top shareholder of Metaplanet, has sold 18,428,700 shares in the company. The sale is worth approximately 4.84 billion yen, converted using the closing price on each sale date for on-market transactions and the disclosed price for off-market transactions. Its holdings of common stock fell by a net 10,603,300 shares from July 13, and as of September 8 the firm no longer qualified as a major shareholder or as the top shareholder among major shareholders. The sales took place between August 3 and September 8, according to a notice on changes in major shareholders and the top shareholder among major shareholders, along with a change report, that Metaplanet published on September 15. Metaplanet's stock fell sharply during the period of continued selling, dropping from a closing price of 326 yen on September 1 to 244 yen on September 8, the final day of selling, a decline of about 25.2 percent over five trading days.

Bitcoin rebounded above $77,800 after earlier weakening to near $75,700, trading in a range of $76,636 to $79,600 amid a revival in crypto market activity and trading volume. The price remains capped by key resistance at $80,000. Investors are watching progress on the stalled CLARITY Act draft, as well as the US Federal Reserve meeting scheduled for tonight.

The Senate blocked a landmark digital asset market structure bill in a procedural vote Tuesday, sending crypto-related stocks sharply lower. The legislation failed to reach the 60 votes needed to advance. Coinbase declined more than 9%, while Circle Internet Group dropped over 9.6%; Strategy fell roughly 5%, and Bitmine Immersion Technologies lost more than 7%. The bill would have given the Commodity Futures Trading Commission primary authority to regulate the digital assets industry, and Democrats blocked the measure citing concerns over ethics provisions designed to address President Donald Trump's crypto business interests. Senate Republican leaders released an updated version of the Clarity Act late Sunday night that added measures to expand state attorneys general's ability to enforce ethics provisions and further limit crypto companies from offering rewards or interest to stablecoin users, including a circuit-breaker for the Treasury Department to prohibit such rewards, interest or yield. Democrats said the ethical guardrails for the president and other elected officials holding cryptocurrencies did not go far enough, particularly in light of Trump's $1.4 billion crypto windfall, and the defeat comes less than two months before the midterm elections in November.

Bitcoin fell as much as 4.9% on Tuesday from Monday's high of nearly $80K after the Clarity Act failed to advance out of committee, with the largest cryptocurrency by market cap sliding to $76.1K Tuesday afternoon, down 2.7% over the past 24 hours, and a low of the day of $75.7K against Monday's high of $79.6K. Ethereum, the second-largest digital token by market cap, dropped 4.5% to $2.40K at about 3:05 PM ET. The odds of the Clarity Act becoming law before Jan. 1, 2027, slid to 7.7% at about 3:45 PM ET from as high as 39% at 7:27 AM ET, after a procedural vote to advance the bill to the Senate floor for a full vote failed Tuesday afternoon, with major sticking points including ethics over legislators and the president profiting from stablecoins and other digital assets and whether platforms should be allowed to pay interest on stablecoin holdings. Vladimir Tikhomirov, founder of Theorem and co-founder of Algebra, said the development was a setback but "doesn't change the direction of the crypto market either, as prices are still too heavily dependent on rates, dollar liquidity, and macro conditions," adding that the RWA market remains in an uncertain position with no regulatory blueprint for how these assets can be traded, how liquidity is formed around them, and how investors can actually exit their positions. Crypto stocks slumping the most in Tuesday trading included Circle Internet at -10%, Coinbase Global at -9.5%, Gemini Space Station at -7.3%, and Bakkt at -6.9%, while crypto mining stocks also dipped, with Riot Platforms at -5.5%, CleanSpark at -4.6%, Core Scientific at -4.0%, Hut 8 at -4.2%, and IREN at -3.6%.

Bitcoin's rally stalled as the odds of the Clarity Act passing this year dropped back to 18% early Tuesday in Asia, after rising above 30% on Polymarket during US trading hours. Bitcoin, which accounts for around 60% of the market value of all cryptocurrencies, retreated from as high as $79,586 to below $78,000 and was last trading at $77,578.33. US Senator Mark Warner told reporters at the US Capitol that a group of Democratic negotiators would send a counteroffer to Republicans ahead of the pivotal procedural vote on the Clarity Act, the comprehensive crypto regulation bill that has been stuck in partisan wrangling for a year, Bloomberg News reported. The bill will need a number of Democrats to cross party lines to advance and move later to final passage because of the Senate's 60-vote rule for most legislation. Rachael Lucas, an analyst at BTC Markets, said prediction-market odds of a 2026 signing sat above 70% in May, collapsed to the low teens through August and rebounded toward 30% on Monday, adding that a counteroffer is consistent with a negotiation that is still live, not one that has broken down.