Bitcoin Breaks Above $86,000, Hits Eight-Month High as Market Cap Tops $3 Trillion

Bitcoin has pushed above $86,000 for the first time in eight months, extending a rally that gathered pace after the US Senate's failed vote on the CLARITY Act last week. The move comes as falling oil prices and a rally in US equities added extra tailwind to crypto markets.

The broader market is following BTC higher. Total crypto market capitalization rose 0.5% on the day to reach $3.03 trillion, with sentiment gauges still reading "Greed." Ethereum is trading near $2,752, and the DeFi sector has outpaced the wider market, with its market cap climbing 2.2% to $87.2 billion on roughly $8.29 billion in 24-hour trading volume. Stablecoins continue to expand too, with total stablecoin market cap at $292.2 billion, up 0.3% on the day, alongside about $102.4 billion in stablecoin trading volume.

The rally is notable given how choppy the past two weeks have been. Bitcoin briefly dipped below $76,000 after the Senate narrowly blocked the CLARITY Act, and the market also had to absorb a Federal Reserve interest rate hike and a Bank of Japan hike that took Japanese rates to a 31-year high — without trading meaningfully below that $75,000 level. From there, BTC surged 5.7% in a single session to reclaim $85,000, and has now carried that momentum to a fresh eight-month high.

Why it matters: The move suggests traders are treating the CLARITY Act setback as a temporary headwind rather than a structural one, and that macro tailwinds (falling oil, a strong equity tape) are currently doing more to move crypto prices than domestic regulatory news.

Sources: Cointelegraph, CoinGabbar, Investing News Network