Bitcoin is down just 1.5% in its historically weakest month and remains on track for its first quarterly gain in a year, despite rising rates, surging oil and a stronger dollar.
- Bitcoin held near $75,000 after the Clarity Act stalled in the Senate and the Fed delivered its first rate hike in more than three years.
- The Bank of Japan also raised rates, while the Bank of England held steady and the SEC offered a brighter spot with its tokenisation exemption.
Observers say the resilience signals bullish undercurrents.
After bitcoin rallied 25% in August, reaching around $81,000, expectations were that it would surrender much of those gains. That’s because September has delivered an average loss of roughly 3% since 2013.
Instead, bitcoin is down just 1.5% this month. With under two weeks remaining, it is still up about 32% for the quarter, putting it on course for its first positive quarterly close since the third quarter of 2025.
As of this writing, bitcoin is trading at $78,000, roughly back to where it was before Wednesday’s Fed rate hike, which was largely seen as a headwind for crypto and other risk assets.
That’s not all. This week has provided plenty of reasons for the market to fall, but it hasn’t.
On Tuesday, the Clarity Act failed to secure the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate, attracting just 49 supporters. Bitcoin briefly fell below $74,887 on Tuesday only to stabilize quickly. The relatively contained sell-off suggested that traders had already priced in much of the risk of failure.
“What stands out to me is that Bitcoin has hardly budged at all in response to two objectively bad pieces of news. A 25-basis-point hike and the CLARITY Act failing to pass are both headlines that, in a different market environment, would have sent price meaningfully lower. Instead, we got basically nothing,” Mitchell Askew, head of Blockware Intelligence at Blockware, said in an email.
Seller fatigue
She explained that when bad news stops affecting the price, it’s a sign of seller exhaustion.
“Anybody who was going to sell bitcoin based on events like these has already sold. They no longer have coins to sell. That is an incredibly positive sign for the medium to long term, and it is exactly what you tend to see in the later stages of a bottoming process,” she noted.
Energy markets added to the pressure early this week, as West Texas Intermediate crude climbed above $106 a barrel on Tuesday, reaching a five-month high as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East persisted.
If that’s not enough, the Dollar Index, which measures the dollar against a basket of major currencies, has topped 100, hitting its highest level in over a month. Sustained dollar strength can tighten financial conditions and weigh on risk assets, including bitcoin. Further, the Bank of Japan lifted its benchmark borrowing cost to a 31-year high.
Explaining bitcoin’s resilience to these factors, Sygnum Bank said rising interest rates and bond yields are not always bearish.
“It's not a one-way street. You see yields rising, and at the same time Bitcoin and gold outperforming. If rising rates are an indication of debasement risk and sovereign counterparty risk, then for store of value assets that is actually a positive driver,” Fabian Dori, chief investment officer at Sygnum, said in an email.
What next?
For bitcoin, the takeaway is its resilience, above $77,000, despite legislative setbacks, rising oil prices, tighter monetary policy and a stronger dollar. In other words, the path of least resistance appears to be higher.
“If the market has been this resilient when the news flow has been challenging, even a modest improvement in macro, geopolitical or regulatory conditions could provide the catalyst for the next major leg higher,” Joel Kruger, Markets Strategist at LMAX Group, said.
The regulatory policy outlook continues to improve after the Senate rejected the Clarity Act. On Thursday, the crypto industry received a more encouraging policy development as the Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled its long-awaited innovation exemption for tokenized securities venues, allowing qualifying platforms to facilitate onchain trading of stocks under specified conditions.
“The failure to advance the legislation delays a statutory framework, but it does not prevent the SEC and CFTC from continuing to provide guidance under existing authority, leaving an important regulatory pathway open,” Kruger noted.
Some are concerned about the possibility of more rate hikes by the Fed and increases in Treasury yields. Markets are pricing in three further quarter-point increases by April 2027, which would take the federal funds rate to 4.50%–4.75%.
But as Dori said, this doesn’t necessarily pose a risk.
“I do not fully agree that rates need to fall in order for digital assets to outperform,” he stressed.
The only concerning factor for bulls is that seasonality offers little comfort heading into next week.
Bitcoin has historically fallen an average of 2.5% in the year’s 38th week, recording gains on just four occasions, according to Coinglass.
But past performance is no guarantee of future results. Besides, the same seasonality turns positive as we enter the final quarter of the year. Bitcoin on average goes up 77% in Q4, according to data source CoinDesk.
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.