Author | Cathy, Plain Language Blockchain

The bill did not pass, interest rates increased, yet Bitcoin rose by 6%. This is the cryptocurrency market over the past week.

On September 15, the "Clarity Bill" that the crypto industry has lobbied for over a year crumbled in the Senate, with 49 votes in favor and 50 votes against, falling short of the necessary 60 votes by 11 votes. Coinbase and Circle dropped about 10% that day, and Bitcoin fell from nearly $80,000 to below $75,000.

The next day, the Federal Reserve unanimously approved an increase of 25 basis points, raising the federal funds rate to between 3.75% and 4%, marking the first increase since July 2023.

The day after that, the SEC issued a five-year "innovation waiver" order, allowing tokenized US stocks to be traded on public blockchains using liquidity pools. On September 18, Bitcoin surged from $76,000 to above $81,000, with CoinGlass reporting about $470 million in short positions being liquidated within 24 hours.

Three days, two heavy blows, one candy. The market chose the candy.

A week ago, Glassnode referred to the 1.07 million Bitcoins held between $83,000 and $86,000 as "a ceiling visible to all." A week later, both bearish news events landed, yet the price returned to the foot of this wall.

The question has changed: Is this the starting point after all bearish elements are exhausted, or a repeat of the 2023 pattern of rising followed by falling?

01. Two Heavy Blows, Price Drops Only to $75,000

The core of the CLARITY Bill is to clarify which types of digital assets fall under SEC and CFTC jurisdiction. The bill's sponsor, Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis, stated before the vote that she had agreed to over 120 demands from the Democrats; if it still could not pass, "then we're finished."

What held it back was not the crypto industry itself, but a moral clause. The Democrats insisted on applying restrictions on public officials holding digital assets, extending this to the President and their immediate family, believing the amended text did not accomplish this, resulting in no votes in favor and four Republicans opposing.

The outcome is that legislative certainty at the federal level is postponed at least until the next Congress.

Regarding interest rates, Federal Reserve Chair Waller stated at a press conference, "Inflation is too high and has been high for too long." Economic forecasts indicate inflation will not return to 2% until 2029, with 16 of the 18 officials in the dot plot predicting another rate hike within the year. The two-year US Treasury yield rose to 4.74%.

However, the price reaction was very measured. On the day of the rate decision, Bitcoin fluctuated between $75,000 and $76,500, closing at $76,200, with the $76,000 to $82,000 buying range mentioned by Glassnode not being breached. What truly left was the money from the ETF: On September 15 and 16, the net outflow from the US spot Bitcoin ETF was $746 million.

The bearish news landed, but the price did not collapse. This was the first signal from the market.

02. What Does the SEC's Waiver Order Actually Allow?

Over the past two years, tokenized US stocks have mostly been issued overseas and sold only to non-Americans; essentially, they are synthetic products pegged to price, with holders not receiving dividends or having voting rights.

This order changed the approach. From September 17 until September 17, 2031, qualifying platforms can trade tokenized US stocks on public, permissionless blockchains using automated market-makers' liquidity pools without needing to register as exchanges; institutions providing funds to the pool also do not need to register as dealers.

There are many conditions. Tokens must have the same rights as real stocks, including dividends and voting rights, and synthetic products are not allowed; issuers must be given written notice 30 days before going live and can veto; it must be open only to verified Americans; if the underlying stocks halt trading on the exchange, there must be a synchronous halt on-chain.

Another piece of the puzzle was laid down in June: the SEC proposed to abolish Rule 611 of the National Market System, which requires every stock transaction to be executed at the best price across all markets, and as automated market-makers set prices based on formulas, this cannot be achieved. Without abolishing Rule 611, liquidity pools would be legally non-compliant.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins stated very directly in the announcement: Congress failed to advance the Clarity Bill, so today the SEC took a step forward.

Kenneth Bentsen, Chair of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, issued a statement expressing concern that multiple tokenized versions of the same stock trading in parallel could segment liquidity and confuse investors.

The market votes with prices. Uniswap's UNI rose about 30% in 24 hours, reaching a 10-month high; Ondo, which complies with tokenized government bonds, rose by 7.39%. Currently, the total amount of tokenized real-world assets on public chains is only over $30 billion, with BlackRock's BUIDL fund accounting for about $2.8 billion and open only to institutions.

With a 25 basis point rate hike, the market digested it within a day. Spot US stocks going on-chain had the market signaling with a 6% increase.

03. How Did the 2023 Pattern of Rise Then Fall Occur?

Pulling the candlestick chart back to 2023, the first half of the script is almost identical.

On June 15, 2023, BlackRock submitted an application for a spot Bitcoin ETF, and Bitcoin started at $25,000. On July 13, a judge ruled that XRP's secondary sales on exchanges do not constitute securities sales, and Bitcoin surged to $31,800, hitting a 13-month high. It was again an uptick driven by favorable regulation.

On July 26, the Federal Reserve raised rates by 25 basis points to 5.25% to 5.5%, and Bitcoin closed that day at $29,400, showing almost no reaction. Over the next 13 days, the price slightly rose between $29,000 and $30,000, touching $30,200 on August 8, which was the highest point after the rate hike.

Then the decline began. On August 17, Bitcoin fell from $28,700 to $25,400, dropping 11% during trading. CoinGlass reported that 175,000 people were liquidated within 24 hours, amounting to $1.032 billion; CoinShares reported a decrease of $2.75 billion in the perpetual contract open interest in one day, the largest deleveraging since the FTX collapse.

The narrative for that day was that SpaceX reduced and sold its Bitcoin holdings, along with Evergrande filing for bankruptcy protection in New York, but the larger context was that the 10-year Treasury yield rose to its highest since 2007. On September 11, Bitcoin fell below $25,000 again.

After the rate hike, it first rose for 13 days and then fell for five weeks by 17%. If calculated from the $31,800 high on July 13, it dropped 22% in two months. The excitement brought by regulatory good news was gradually worn away by interest rates.

The similarities are clear: Regulatory good news pushes it up, macro factors pull it back.

The differences are also apparent. In 2023, there was no spot ETF; buying was mainly from retail investors in exchanges and grayscale trusts. Today, the total assets of US spot ETFs are about $103 billion, with a net inflow of $3.52 billion in August alone. The total market cap of stablecoins is above $300 billion.

But Glassnode's judgment last week cannot be ignored: new demand has already cooled. On-chain capital inflow stopped after increasing for 27 consecutive days; publicly traded companies bought 89,000 coins in July last year, but this dropped to 5,900 coins in the recent three months; stablecoin supply is down 4% from the peak in April.

Both interpretations have their basis. The structure of buying has indeed changed, but buying itself is decreasing.

04. 6% Short of $86,000

$81,000 is just returning to the lower edge of the wall. According to Glassnode's early September statistics, about 1.07 million long-term holders’ funds are settled between $83,000 and $86,000, and the overall breakeven point for ETFs is also around $86,000, being in a floating loss for 228 consecutive trading days by early September.

Whether it can actually break through the wall depends on three indicators.

First, Bitcoin must close above $86,000 on a weekly basis, indicating that the 1.07 million coins have been absorbed.

Second, the US spot ETF needs to see a net inflow of over $1.5 billion for three consecutive weeks, indicating that the influx of new money is sustained, not just a one-day pulse.

Third, the 30-year Treasury yield should return below 5%, indicating that the risk-free rate no longer weighs down risk assets.

Currently, none of the three indicators have been met; they have just stopped worsening. On September 19, the price was around $81,000, still 6% away from $86,000. The ETF saw an outflow of $746 million in the first two days of the week, followed by an inflow of $593 million in the last two days, essentially breaking even for the week, with no continuous inflow to speak of. The 30-year Treasury yield closed at 5.33% on September 18, still above 5%.

The options market is more straightforward. The biggest pain point is at $72,000; sell orders for call options are stacked at $85,000 and $90,000. Those selling options are betting that the price will not break out of the range between $72,000 and $85,000.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes posted the day after the rate hike, stating that raising rates when government debt is so high actually stimulates: the interest on bank reserves and the interest of Treasury bond holders rise together, ultimately leading to more consumption, especially of financial assets. The total assets held by the Federal Reserve and banks are still increasing, the amount of money is growing, but the price of money is also rising.

His conclusion is that "the price of financial assets will continue to rise."

One Point BFG Chief Investment Officer Peter Boockvar holds the opposite view. He believes this rate hike merely reversed the rate cut from last December; the Federal Reserve is mainly responding to an energy supply shock, and it has no capacity to handle it, so it is better to let the bond market determine the price of money itself.

Hayes speaks of the quantity of money, while Boockvar speaks of the price of money. In 2023, the winner was price.

Will this time be different? The answer lies not in the SEC’s order but in the flow tables of ETFs for the next two weeks.

The candy has already been consumed, but the wall still stands.

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