Bitcoin tops $86,000 despite CLARITY vote failure

Bitcoin tops $86,000 despite CLARITY vote failure

Anand Sinha

Mon, September 21, 2026 at 7:24 PM GMT+3 2 min read

Bitcoin (BTC) hit as high as $86,282.09 on Sep. 21, as per CoinGecko.

It is the leading cryptocurrency's 8-month high, as the last time it went this high was in late January this year.

Bitcoin has gained 5.8% in 24 hours, thanks to forced buying due to a short squeeze.

Around $454 million in Bitcoin short positions have been liquidated over the last 24 hours, as per the onchain analytics platform CoinGlass.

In fact, more than $928 million in short positions across different cryptocurrencies have been liquidated over the last 24 hours, out of which $784 million are short positions.

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Ether, XRP, HYPE surge

Ethereum (ETH) and XRP also surged to $2,760.17 and $1.50 today, gaining 6.6% and 8.5% in the last 24 hours.

Last week, Hyperliquid, the popular decentralized crypto exchange, rolled out a loan feature that allows users to borrow USDC and USDT after submitting HYPE or Bitcoin as collateral. The news turned investors bullish, as the network's native token, HYPE, today hit a new all-time high (ATH) of $95.99.

Strategy, Bitmine buy Bitcoin and Ether

Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) bought 950 Bitcoin for $75.7 million during Sep. 14-20. The largest corporate Bitcoin treasury company now holds 846,000 BTC on its balance sheet, as of Sep. 20.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) bought 27,562 Ether last week. The company now holds 5,983,940 ETH on its balance sheet.

Trump administration makes pro-crypto moves after CLARITY vote failure

The bullish turn comes only days after the crypto market faced the failure of the Senate cloture vote on the CLARITY Act and the Federal Reserve raising interest rates for the first time after 2023.

However, the Donald Trump administration assured the crypto industry of its support by making several pro-crypto moves last week.

First, the SEC introduced its five-year "Innovation Exemption," creating a pathway for qualifying platforms to trade tokenized U.S. stocks onchain.

Second, the CFTC issued a no-action position for certain software developers connecting users to regulated crypto exchanges.

Third, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee passed the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act with bipartisan support. It would establish special tax treatment for certain dollar-pegged stablecoins and lending agreements, extend wash-sale rules to popular crypto assets, and bring new rules for crypto mining and staking income. It would establish a de minimis exemption for certain crypto transaction fees of $10 or less.

Fourth, the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services passed the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026 (H.R. 8957) to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve and a digital asset stockpile, as Trump had promised.

Bitcoin was trading at $85,750 at the time of writing, as per Decibel.

Related: Cathie Wood sends bullish Bitcoin response to 'dead cat' warning

This story was originally published by TheStreet on Sep 21, 2026, where it first appeared in the MARKETS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.