Bitcoin Has Hit $85,000 For The First Time Since January

Bitcoin rose above $85,000 on Monday to its highest level since late January, extending a sharp rally in recent days as investors assessed whether a prolonged downturn in digital assets had ended.

Bitcoin was trading at $84,256 at around 0635 ET, up about 3.8%, according to CoinMetrics. It earlier reached $85,229, its highest level since late January.

Investors are assessing whether the “crypto winter”, a prolonged period of depressed digital asset prices that began after bitcoin reached a record above $126,000 in October 2025, is over.

“I do think it’s over, it’s crypto spring, the crocuses are blooming,” Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise, said.

“I think this will actually be the strongest and longest-running bull market in crypto’s history.”

Bitcoin remains down for the year, but has gained more than 7% over the past five days and nearly 35% in the last three months. It remains well below its record high.

Hougan said that while the cryptocurrency market had declined for a period, the “fundamentals went up”, citing increased transactions across blockchains and greater involvement from major financial firms including BlackRock.

“So I think we had this unusual situation where you had a cyclical decline in prices even as you had a secular improvement in fundamentals. And now I suspect that prices are going to catch up toward the end of the year,” Hougan said.

“I don’t think if I came back next year, we’d still be below those all-time highs.”

Analysts at BTIG said in a note on Sunday that if bitcoin holds the $75,000 level, “bulls can target a push through 82k on the way to” $90,000.

Shares of cryptocurrency-related companies including Strategy and Coinbase rose in U.S. premarket trading on Monday.

The rally comes despite the U.S. Senate last week blocking the Clarity Act from advancing. The legislation would have established a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies in the United States and divided oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Regulatory measures in the United States, including the Genius Act passed last year, have supported cryptocurrency prices. But Hougan said the failure of the Clarity Act could also support prices because the SEC and CFTC will continue to set the rules for the industry.

“It’s the most pro-crypto SEC in the history of the U.S.; it’s the most pro-crypto CFTC in the history of the U.S. So ironically, in the absence of Clarity passing, we may actually have stronger pro-crypto regulation,” Hougan said.

Hougan also said investors were rotating money from artificial intelligence stocks back into cryptocurrencies.

He said the AI boom had “sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Any investor who was a momentum-driven investor was focused on that. Now that that has sort of levelled off, you’re seeing that money rotate back into crypto.”

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