Bitcoin climbed to an eight-month high above $85,000 on Monday, peaking at $85,222 for a gain of up to 5.1% as renewed ETF demand and improving appetite for risk assets extended momentum from the prior week. The token settled at $85,117, a 4.7% advance, and has now surged more than 30% from its Aug. 19 level while adding close to 6% in last week's trading alone, staying comfortably clear of the $80,000 mark that had repeatedly resisted upward breakthroughs in prior weeks. Zaye Capital Markets analyst Naeem Aslam cited accelerating ETF inflows, favorable signals from regulators, and traders covering short positions, while on the options platform Deribit call contracts outnumbered puts by more than 272,000 to 154,000. FxPro chief market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich told Bloomberg that the crypto market capitalization has risen to $2.8T, its highest level since the end of January this year, with buyers dominating since Sunday. Falling oil prices and optimism ahead of a planned Thursday summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping lifted risk assets broadly, with Ether rising more than 4.3% to $2,747 while XRP, Solana, and Monero also gained. The milestone builds on a recovery that absorbed the failure of the Clarity Act and the Federal Reserve's first interest-rate increase in more than three years, aided by a Securities and Exchange Commission green light on Thursday for digital versions of securities to begin trading in the U.S., though bitcoin remains well below the $97,000-plus level it hit in mid-January and trails its all-time October record by an even wider margin.
Google and Apple Hire for Crypto Roles as Big Tech Embraces Tokenization
Google and Apple are both hiring for digital-asset roles, a sign that stablecoins and tokenization are becoming core expertise inside Big Tech. Google Cloud is seeking an architect in Hong Kong to help protocol foundations, exchanges and custodians tokenize real-world assets across Asia-Pacific, while Apple is filling an Apple Pay strategy lead role focused on Apple Card, Apple Cash and peer-to-peer payments. The listings follow Samsung's plan to build stablecoin features into Galaxy phones through Samsung Wallet. Separately, Kalshi is facing accusations of fake trading volume on its newly launched crypto perpetual futures, with analyst Benny flagging that Kalshi's Ether perp logged 539 million in 24-hour volume against just $3.1 million in open interest, a 174-to-1 gap, and pointing to repetitive $5,500 trades making up as much as 58% of daily volume; Kalshi's product lead pushed back, saying the numbers reflect maximum potential payout, not fake activity. MicroStrategy added 950 BTC for $75.7 million last week, its first purchase since late August, funded from the company's dollar reserve, which now sits at $5 billion, bringing its holdings to 846,000 Bitcoin bought for a total of $63.81 billion.
Bitcoin Hits 8-Month High of $85,326 as $383 Million in Shorts Liquidated
Bitcoin climbed to an eight-month high of $85,326.10 on Sep. 21, its strongest level since late January, according to CoinGecko. The leading cryptocurrency gained 6% in 24 hours, lifted by forced buying from a short squeeze that liquidated roughly $383 million in Bitcoin short positions over the past day, per the onchain analytics platform CoinGlass. Across all cryptocurrencies, more than $781 million in positions were liquidated in the last 24 hours, of which $659 million were shorts. Ether rose 6% to $2,731.56 and XRP gained 7.8% to $1.48, while Hyperliquid's HYPE token hit a new all-time high of $95.99 after the decentralized exchange rolled out a loan feature allowing users to borrow USDC and USDT against HYPE or Bitcoin collateral. Strategy bought 950 Bitcoin for $75.7 million during Sep. 14-20 and now holds 846,000 BTC, while Bitmine Immersion Technologies bought 27,562 Ether last week and now holds 5,983,940 ETH. The rally followed the failure of the Senate cloture vote on the CLARITY Act and the Federal Reserve's first interest rate hike since 2023, after which the Trump administration made several pro-crypto moves, including the SEC's five-year Innovation Exemption for tokenized U.S. stocks, a CFTC no-action position for certain software developers, the House Ways and Means Committee's passage of the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, and the House Financial Services Committee's passage of the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026 to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Bitcoin was trading at $84,999 at the time of writing, per Decibel.
Bitcoin surges past $86,000 as analysts eye $90,000 target
Bitcoin surged past the $86,000 level today, touching its highest point since January. As of 10:07 p.m. Thailand time, Bitcoin had climbed 6.04% to $86,088.80 in trading on the Coin Metrics platform, while analysts expect Bitcoin to potentially push up to the $90,000 level. Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, told CNBC's Squawk Box Europe that the "crypto winter" is over and predicted this will become the strongest and longest bull market in crypto history. Over the past five days, Bitcoin's price has risen more than 7%, and over the past three months it has climbed nearly 35%. Analysts at BTIG said in a report that as long as Bitcoin remains above the $75,000 level, the bulls can set a target for the price to break through $82,000 on its way toward $90,000. Bitcoin's rally came even after the U.S. Senate last week blocked the Clarity Act from moving forward. Hougan said the bill's failure to pass the Senate could also be a supportive factor for crypto prices, since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will continue to set the rules.
