Bitcoin has climbed to its highest level since January. Days after US lawmakers failed to move the Clarity Act forward, Bitcoin jumped 7% to trade above $87,000, wiping away the negative sentiment that came out of Washington.
The stock market caught that wave, and crypto-linked companies have shown similar strength at the start of the week.
Coinbase, which has trailed the market for most of the year, has gained 10% over the last five days, while Robinhood is up 11% over the same stretch. Michael Saylor’s company Strategy has rallied 28%, and Silvia Inc., formerly ProCap Financial, the AI company that holds more than 5,200 bitcoin where the author serves as chief market strategist, has also gained 28%.
Over the past week, balance sheet names have outperformed the exchanges that profit from trading fees by more than three to one. That gap suggests the rally in crypto-linked stocks is driven more by bitcoin’s price appreciation than by trading activity.
Wall Street entered the year expecting crypto regulation to move quickly and make real progress under the Trump administration.
That has not happened, and there is little hope that updated crypto bills will pass in the months ahead.
Bitcoin spent most of this year trading as if it were waiting for friendlier oversight, but the market suddenly seems to have moved on from that assumption.
The legislative catalyst has stalled, and that has done nothing to stop the asset from climbing anyway.
If bitcoin can keep rising without new policy tailwinds, the bull case shifts back toward the macro forces that bitcoiners have been watching for years, global liquidity and currency debasement, two long-term trends that are hard to imagine reversing.
