Bitcoin (BTC-USD) rallied to a two-week high on Friday, along with other cryptocurrencies.
The surge came despite a Fed rate hike earlier in the week and the failure of the Clarity Act, legislation that would have created a federal framework for the broader digital asset industry.
When the measure failed to advance in the Senate, the Securities and Exchange Commission stepped in on Thursday with a conditional exemption to allow the trading of certain tokenized stocks on blockchains for the next five years.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies moved with resilience even as the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates, with investors anticipating at least one more increase this year.
“Crypto has absorbed a fairly aggressive hawkish repricing without much damage,” said Sean Farrell, head of digital assets at Fundstrat on Friday.
The bitcoin price surge on Friday appeared largely technical, as derivatives traders were strongly bullish.
“US spot ETF inflows and short covering helped push it through the psychologically important $80,000 level,” wrote Bitget Wallet research analyst Lacie Zhang on Friday.
While bitcoin led the surge, alt-coins ether (ETH-USD), binance (BNC-USD), and solana (SOL-USD) have outperformed over a broader window, gaining 35%, 25%, and 41%, respectively, over the past month, according to Yahoo Finance’s AlphaSpace data.
Investors rotated into alternative tokens and other digital assets, such as tokenized versions of Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA), and the S&P 500 (SPY) on Friday, helping lift the crypto market capitalization to $2.66 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Strategists have pointed to signs that the cyclical crypto winter may be over, with Compass Point’s Ed Engel last week updating platform Coinbase (COIN) to Neutral from Sell, citing “BTC is recovering from a cyclical bottom.” (Disclosure: Yahoo Finance has a partnership with Coinbase.)
In August, the token gained roughly 25%. Year to date, the token is down 8%.
Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance.
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