Bitcoin (BTC) Rebounds to $86,423 as Tom Lee Calls Fed Rate Hike a Peak

Bitcoin Climbs Past $86,000

Bitcoin (BTC) traded at $86,423 on Tuesday, up roughly $10,000 from below $76,000 a week earlier, completing one of the sharpest seven-day reversals of the quarter. Two separate shocks landed on consecutive sessions, and neither dented the rebound. On September 15, the CLARITY Act — the bill that would have defined which US regulator oversees digital assets — failed a Senate procedural vote 50-49, far short of the 60 votes required to advance. The next day, the Federal Reserve delivered its first rate increase since 2023, lifting the benchmark 0.25 percentage points into a 3.75% to 4% range. The combination of regulatory limbo and a hawkish surprise would normally cap risk appetite, and Bitcoin did briefly slip below $76,000 after the vote before reversing the entire drawdown within days.

Fundstrat Capital chief investment officer Tom Lee reads the reversal as confirmation that policy tightening has peaked, a call he has repeated several times this month. His weekly update anchors the argument to a change in how the government measures inflation, scheduled for September 30. Economists expect the revised methodology to pull the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) rate, the Fed's preferred gauge, down from 3.4% to near 3%. “They can't get any more hawkish than this,” Lee wrote, adding that even one further 0.25-point hike would not break the economy or the stock market. For HODL-focused holders of Bitcoin, the message is that the macro overhang which dragged the Bitcoin market below $76,000 is close to resolving. The recovery also capped what our earlier coverage chronicled as the asset's best September since 2012.

iTrustCapital CEO Sees Crypto Winter Ending

Not everyone needed a macro model to reach the same conclusion. Kevin Maloney, chief executive of iTrustCapital, a platform that lets retirement accounts invest in crypto and stocks, said in an interview with Paul Barron that the prolonged slump traders call the crypto winter is over. The clearest evidence, he argued, sits on his own books: the firm was holding about $350 million in idle client cash, and significant portions of that balance are being redeployed into the market now. When retirement capital that sat out the drawdown starts buying again, it typically marks the patient cohort returning rather than momentum chasing. In a market where marginal buyers set the price, a few hundred million dollars of returning long-horizon flows is a demand signal, however modest it looks against daily volume. Maloney also pushed back on the regulatory narrative — in his words, “Bitcoin doesn't need Clarity Act” — and set a concrete threshold: a weekly close above $85,000 would leave Bitcoin in good position.

The tape is not uniformly supportive. The Fed's own projections show 16 of 18 officials expecting another hike this year, a published projection that contradicts Lee's read at face value. Fund-flow figures also recorded roughly $450 million leaving spot Bitcoin ETFs on September 15, the same day the CLARITY Act vote failed. The outflow print predates most of the recovery, so it measured reaction to the hike and the failed vote rather than the rebound itself. Outflows of that size on a policy-shock day look more like de-risking than a structural exit, but they show institutional demand is not yet confirming the bullish calls. Bitcoin still held 0.6% higher on the day at the latest read. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Gate.

September 30 Inflation Print Next Test

COINOTAG's analysis: both calls converge on a single date. If the September 30 methodology change pulls PCE toward 3%, Lee's peak-hawkishness case hardens and the $85,000 weekly-close line Maloney flagged turns from resistance into support — price already sits above it at $86,423. Our review of the daily chart on TradingView shows the recovery holding that level as of publication. The unresolved risk is the Fed's own dot plot, where 16 of 18 officials still project one more hike; a hot print before September 30 keeps that door open. Readers mapping where this rebound sits in the wider cycle can use our Bitcoin Rainbow Chart guide.