Bitcoin traded just above $81,000 during Monday’s Asian morning, rising less than 1% in 24 hours after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission cleared a path Thursday for onchain trading (transactions settled directly on blockchain) of tokenized U.S. stocks. NEAR gained roughly 23% to above $4, making it the strongest major token, as NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swap service, handled sharply higher ZEC activity. ZEC rose 3% to above $1,500, while BNB, Ether and HYPE also advanced. Equities gained across Asia after U.S. officials described talks with China as very successful ahead of a summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping this week. BTSE chief operating officer Jeff Mei attributed Bitcoin’s weekend rise to the SEC development and a subsequent short squeeze, while pointing to potential volatility before the Federal Reserve’s late-October meeting.