Bitcoin climbed above $81,000 on Sept. 18, reaching $81,702 after trading near $76,400 a day earlier and marking its first move above $80,000 since Sept. 7. It was trading at $81,309.4 as of 22:50 ET and was up 5.62% for the day. The rebound followed a difficult week for risk assets that included 25-basis-point rate increases by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan, whose policy rate reached 1.25%, its highest level in 31 years. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted about $159 million on Sept. 17, while roughly $192 million in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated within an hour, including more than $183 million in short positions. Bitcoin shorts represented about $119 million of the total. The rally came after the U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act. Separately, the CFTC submitted a crypto market proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget, while the SEC introduced a five-year innovation exemption for qualifying platforms offering onchain trading in certain tokenized stocks. The CFTC also granted limited relief to software providers connecting users with regulated derivatives markets. Market-based forecasts remained mixed: Myriad traders assigned an 84% probability to Bitcoin reaching $84,000 before $55,000, while Polymarket traders placed the probability of a $90,000 price this year at 59%, $100,000 at 25% and $70,000 at 48%. Ether rose 6.37% to $2,619.81, XRP gained 8.97% to $1.4238, Solana advanced 10.54% to $113.57 and BNB rose 1.78% to $762. Bitcoin later traded at $81,378 on Binance's USDT market on Sept. 19, while Upbit quoted about $83,200. Analysts continued to identify the $81,600-$83,000 zone as a key test, with a sustained break above $83,000 potentially opening a retest of $90,000, although Glassnode said stablecoin liquidity and corporate Bitcoin purchases remained below levels associated with stronger bull markets.