Bitcoin hits eight-month high as risk appetite returns
This is the first time the digital asset is moving past the $85,000 mark in eight months
Bitcoin jumped to an eight-month high on Monday, rising as much as 5.1% to $85,222 in early New York trade. This is the first time the digital asset is moving past the $85,000 mark in eight months. Falling oil prices and optimism ahead of a summit between US President Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping lifted stocks and bonds alongside crypto.
At the time of publishing, Bitcoin was trading at $84,583 with the charts favouring the bulls, however $85,500 will act as the real near-term checkpoint. The recovery began late last week, when the market shrugged off the failure of the Clarity Act, which was meant to bring clearer regulation to the industry.
Then came the Fed's first rate increase in more than three years. And finally Thursday green light from the US Securities and Exchange Commission for digital versions of securities to trade helped lift sentiment.
This upward momentum has taken the total crypto market value to $2.8 trillion, its highest since the end of January.
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According to a Bloomberg report, open interest calls on Deribit topped 272,000 contracts, against about 154,000 puts. "People are repositioning from downside protection to wanting to capture the upside," said Pratik Kala, a portfolio manager at Apollo Crypto. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in $433 million on Sept. 18, led by Fidelity's FBTC and BlackRock's IBIT, reversing part of the earlier selling.
Retail investors remain cautious
Not everyone expects the momentum to last. Crude remains above $100 a barrel and US Treasury yields are elevated. Bitcoin is also well below its 2026 high of over $97,000 in January. Retail interest has been slow as investors have proved to choose AI-linked stocks for allocation of speculative money.
Gulf sovereign money keeps buying the dip
Two Abu Dhabi funds hold a combined stake of more than $1 billion in BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF, IBIT, at the end of 2025, this according to 13F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year. The firms are Abu Dhabi government-backed sovereign wealth fund Mubadala and Al Warda Investments, which is linked to the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, which itself is a Mubadala subsidiary.
Mubadala held about 14.7 million shares of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust worth roughly $566 million at the end of March. Whereas, Al Warda Investments held a further stake of about $408 million at the end of 2025.
