Bitcoin weathers September storm as rate hikes and Clarity act setback test bulls — SkimNews
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- Bitcoin is down just 1.5% in September despite the month averaging a roughly 3% loss since 2013, holding around $78,000 and up about 32% for the quarter — on track for its first positive quarterly close since Q3 2025.
- The Clarity Act failed to secure the 60 Senate votes needed to advance on Tuesday, attracting just 49 supporters and briefly pushing Bitcoin below $74,887 before price stabilized.
- The Federal Reserve delivered its first rate hike in more than three years (25 basis points) the same week the Bank of Japan lifted its benchmark to a 31-year high and the Bank of England held steady.
- Mitchell Askew, head of Blockware Intelligence, framed Bitcoin's muted reaction as 'seller exhaustion' — arguing anyone who would sell on bad news has already sold, 'exactly what you tend to see in the later stages of a bottoming process.'
- The SEC unveiled a long-awaited innovation exemption for tokenized securities venues on Thursday, allowing qualifying platforms to facilitate onchain stock trading — a partial regulatory bright spot.
- Energy and dollar pressures compounded the headwinds: WTI crude climbed above $106 a barrel (five-month high) and the Dollar Index topped 100, its highest level in over a month.
- Markets are pricing in three additional quarter-point Fed hikes by April 2027, potentially taking the federal funds rate to 4.50%–4.75%, though Sygnum CIO Fabian Dori argued digital assets can outperform even as rates rise.
Why it matters: Bitcoin absorbed a 25-basis-point Fed hike and the Clarity Act's Senate defeat with minimal price damage, which Blockware's Mitchell Askew attributes to seller exhaustion signaling a bottoming process. The same-week SEC tokenization exemption preserves a regulatory pathway even without the stalled legislation.
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