Bitcoin, Ether Jump as Fed Pause Bets Take Hold, Sending Leveraged Crypto Stocks Sharply Higher

Bitcoin climbed to $81,818, up 5.9% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko, while Ether rose 4.3% to $2,494.80. Behind the move is growing bets that the Federal Reserve will hold off on further tightening, a shift in sentiment that has pulled risk assets higher across the board this week.

The rally arrived after a choppier start to the week. Bitcoin and Ether had opened lower on Thursday as Brent crude pushed past $96 a barrel following U.S. airstrikes on Iranian targets, before recovering on hopes the strikes would prove short-lived. By Wednesday, the Fed-pause narrative had taken over as the dominant driver.

The move higher was amplified in the equity market. Strategy, which holds 846,000 bitcoin on its balance sheet, closed up 17.56% at $144.82, while Bitmine Immersion Technologies, which holds more than 5.9 million Ether worth roughly $15.6 billion, gained 12% to $25.84. Coinbase closed up 10.14% at $192.70 and Robinhood gained 16.57% to close at $124.72. The pattern is familiar: treasury and brokerage stocks tied to crypto tend to move at roughly twice the speed of the underlying assets, since each carries a layer of operating and balance-sheet leverage on top of the coins or trading volumes they are exposed to.