Bitcoin gained as yields rose, and barely moved on the hike

Bitcoin rose 4.5 percent over the first three weeks of September while Treasury yields climbed across the curve, but its sharpest daily moves landed around a failed Senate vote and a CFTC filing, not on the day of the Fed's rate decision.

Key points

• Rates really did go up. Between Sept. 1 and Sept. 18, Treasury's own par yield table shows the 3-month bill going from 3.92% to 4.14%, the 2-year from 4.39% to 4.76%, the 10-year from 4.79% to 5.01% and the 30-year from 5.27% to 5.34%.
• On Sept. 16 the Fed raised its target range a quarter point to 3-3/4 to 4 percent on a 12-0 vote with no dissents. The FOMC statement says "Inflation remains elevated."
• Crypto ignored it. On the day of the hike bitcoin closed up 0.7%, opening at $75,585.10 and closing at $76,146.10 on Kraken's daily candles. Over the same Sept. 1 to Sept. 18 window it closed up 4.50%, from $77,398.10 to $80,878.10.
• The week's sell-off was political. On Sept. 15 the Senate's cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the CLARITY Act, H.R. 3633, failed 49-50, short of the 60 needed to advance. Bitcoin fell 3.3% that day and ether fell 4.7%.
• Then it jumped. On Sept. 18 bitcoin rose 5.9% and ether 6.8%, with bitcoin swinging 6.75% between $76,231.00 and $81,373.80 inside one day. Two explanations are on offer and neither is measurable: the CFTC filed a crypto rulemaking, RIN 3038-AF80, with the White House on Sept. 17, per the federal review record; and Yahoo Finance reported short positions being liquidated once bitcoin broke resistance near $78,000, citing Nic Puckrin of Coin Bureau.
• That CFTC filing is logged at the prerule stage, meaning it is not yet even a proposed rule, and is marked not economically significant. The contents were not disclosed, The Block reported. Nothing binds yet.
• ETF flows do not show institutions buying this dip in size. Spot bitcoin ETFs took in $433 million on Friday Sept. 18, $310.7 million of it into Fidelity's FBTC and $108.4 million into BlackRock's IBIT, but The Block's weekly tally puts the full week at $6.2 million net. Spot ether ETFs had a $140 million outflow that week even as ether rose. The Block also puts bitcoin ETFs down about $1.45 billion year to date, against $55.16 billion of cumulative inflows since launch and $102.53 billion in net assets.
• Nothing new has been adopted in Washington. The SEC's Regulation Crypto Assets, release 2026-76 of Aug. 18, is a proposal out for a 60-day comment period. It would create two registration exemptions, up to $5 million over four years and up to $75 million per 12 months. Proposed is not passed.

Why it matters

The tidy rule that higher rates push money out of risky assets did not hold here, and the honest reading is that three weeks is too short a window to test it on something this jumpy. Running the numbers on 90 days of Kraken's daily closes gives bitcoin an annualized volatility of about 38%, with eight of the last 90 days moving more than 3% and the largest single day moving 7.3%. Those are our calculations from the raw price series, not a figure quoted from anyone. In the same month, a 3-month Treasury bill paid 4.14% with no price risk. If you have $200 in a crypto app, that gap is the actual trade-off in front of you, and neither number here is a recommendation or a forecast. Worth noting too that the moves that mattered this month came out of the Senate and a regulator's inbox, so the calendar to watch is a legislative one.

This is an AI-written summary of the reporting credited above and the other sources linked in the text, read and edited by Nicholas before publishing. The facts and any quote belong to those sources; the wording is ours. Read the original.