Bitcoin Surges to $86,000 as FOMO Hits Highest Level Since 2024

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds attracted nearly $1 billion U.S. of capital on Sept. 21 as the rally in cryptocurrencies strengthens. About a dozen U.S. Bitcoin ETFs registered a combined net inflow of $998.95 million U.S., the largest one-day intake since Oct. 6, 2025, when BTC hit a record high of $126,000 U.S. The inflow was the ninth-largest one-day total since the ETFs began trading on Jan. 11, 2024, according to data from SoSoValue. The Sept. 21 inflow has taken the month-to-date tally to $1.31 billion U.S. during September, building on August's $3.52 billion U.S. capital inflow to Bitcoin ETFs. The renewed institutional interest comes as Bitcoin's price has surged 44% over the past month to trade at $86,000 U.S. on Sept. 22, though owing to big redemptions earlier in the year, spot Bitcoin ETFs remain down $450 million U.S. in 2026.

Anthony Scaramucci said on CNBC's Squawk Box on Tuesday that Treasury Secretary Bessent's signal of support for the long end of the curve, not the Clarity Act, is what drove Bitcoin's recent rally. Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital, argued that a pledge to step in at the ten- or thirty-year maturities tells investors something about the fiscal and monetary conditions requiring intervention, making a fixed-supply asset more attractive. He set the Clarity Act aside, saying it would have helped tokenization and some layer-one tokens but that Bitcoin stands alone as a digital store of value. Bitcoin traded at $85,732.79 as of 13:42 UTC on September 22, 2026, up 14.37% over one week from $75,584.17 on September 15, but still down 23.32% over one year and 1.20% year to date. Scaramucci also said he sold Bitcoin on September 15 to pay taxes, with proceeds hitting his JPMorgan account in about ten minutes, and attributed part of the recent move to a short squeeze over the past three weeks.

Bitcoin held above $86,000 on Tuesday after a multi-session rally that analysts say marks the end of the token's cyclical crypto winter. The token jumped more than 5% on Friday and another 6% on Monday, breaking solidly above its 50-day moving average. Sean Farrell, head of digital assets, told Yahoo Finance the breakout is credible and that the crypto winter is over, though he cautioned the path higher may not be linear. Compass Point analyst Ed Engle wrote that crypto is in the early innings of a new bull market with few signs of overheating, while Nansen senior research analyst Nicolai Sondergaard attributed the move to a combination of renewed ETF demand and a large short squeeze. Altcoins also surged after the Securities and Exchange Commission granted a five-year exemption last week for trading in certain tokenized stocks, a move that followed the Senate's failure to advance the Clarity Act. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $2.94 trillion on Monday, about 30% below its record valuation in October, when bitcoin reached an all-time high of more than $125,000.