Google and Apple Hire for Crypto Roles as Big Tech Embraces Tokenization

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 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.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies bought another 27,562 Ethereum, worth roughly $74 million, extending a weekly buying streak that has run without pause since its treasury strategy launched on June 30, 2025. The NYSE-listed company said Monday its holdings now total 5,983,940 ETH, worth about $16.1 billion at a reference price of $2,688 per coin, which represents 4.9% of Ethereum's total supply of 122.1 million tokens and leaves Bitmine, by its own count, 98% of the way to its stated goal of controlling 5% of the network, a target it calls the "Alchemy of 5%." Chairman Tom Lee said a crypto bull market has been underway since late June, driven by a rotation out of AI stocks back into crypto, strengthening tokenization fundamentals and the end of the four-year cycle, and argued Ethereum has been the best-performing macro asset this quarter, outpacing the S&P 500 by 6,519 basis points. Counting cash, other tokens and what it calls "moonshot" investments, Bitmine's total holdings reached $17.1 billion as of Saturday, including 212 Bitcoin, $714 million in cash and marketable securities, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries and a $105 million position in Eightco Holdings. Bitmine remains the world's largest Ethereum treasury and the second-largest crypto treasury overall behind Michael Saylor's Strategy, and it continues to generate staking income, with 5,067,309 ETH, about 85% of its holdings, staked through its MAVAN platform for projected annualized revenue of roughly $357 million.