Bitcoin Holds $76,313 After the Fed Hike; Ether Leads the Rebound

Bitcoin was back above $76,000 early Thursday after the Federal Reserve’s first rate increase in three years, but the recovery stopped short of a breakout. Coinbase recorded BTC at $76,312.93 at 06:06 UTC on September 17, only 0.5% below its 24-hour high.

The path to that price was the more useful signal. Coinbase’s rolling 24-hour data put the low at $74,911.53 and the high at $76,714.68, a $1,803.15 span. Bitcoin was 0.45% above the period’s $75,969 opening level when the quote was taken. Those numbers describe a recovered policy shock, not a clean escape from the recent trading range.

Ether carried more of the rebound

Ether showed the stronger first response. It traded at $2,437.67 at the same time, 1.38% above its 24-hour open, based on Coinbase’s ETH-USD statistics. Its range ran from $2,366.37 to $2,444.63.

That relative performance matters because Ether usually carries more market risk than Bitcoin. A faster ETH rebound is consistent with traders putting risk back on after the decision. It is not proof that the selloff is over: both calculations use one exchange’s rolling window, and neither asset had cleared the top of that window.

The intraday pattern also matches the immediate reaction reported around the announcement. The Block recorded Bitcoin moving between roughly $75,000 and $76,500 after the decision, while Ether swung from about $2,370 to $2,430. The later Coinbase snapshot shows both coins near the upper end of those post-decision ranges.