Bitcoin steadies above $81,000 as tokenised-stock momentum builds
Bitcoin traded just above $81,000 during Monday’s Asian morning hours, up less than 1% over 24 hours and extending gains that began after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission cleared a path for onchain trading of tokenised American stocks on Thursday.
The move has not been explosive, but it has been persistent. Traders and analysts attribute the weekend spike in large part to the SEC decision and the short squeeze that followed, as bearish positions built up in recent weeks were forced to unwind. CoinDesk data confirm a slow grind higher through the Asian session rather than a single violent repricing.
Jeff Mei, chief operating officer at exchange BTSE, put the weekend’s bitcoin strength down to precisely that combination: the regulatory green light for onchain tokenised equities and the squeeze that followed it. His read on the week ahead is more cautious. Beyond remarks from Federal Reserve officials, he sees little on the calendar that is likely to set direction.
“I’d expect more volatility in the last few weeks leading up to that event,” Mei said of the Fed’s late-October meeting. That leaves more than a month of central bank speeches and a single inflation print before the decision, a window in which positioning can shift repeatedly on relatively thin news flow.
The regulatory implication of the SEC’s move extends well beyond a single weekend of price action. Onchain trading of tokenised U.S. stocks effectively merges the equity and crypto settlement rails, and analysts have already begun mapping which firms stand to benefit. Coinbase, Robinhood and Circle have been flagged as potential early winners of the tokenised-stock push, given their existing infrastructure for custody, retail distribution and stablecoin settlement respectively. For bitcoin, the decision reinforces the broader thesis that digital assets are being folded into mainstream market structure rather than kept at arm’s length from it.
For ongoing coverage of how regulation is reshaping the largest cryptocurrency, see our Bitcoin coverage.
NEAR leads the market with 23% surge on Zcash routing
NEAR was the standout performer among major tokens, rising roughly 23% to trade just above $4.
The rally traces to genuine usage rather than speculative narrative alone. NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swap service built on the NEAR blockchain, allows a wallet to trade one token for another across different chains without the user needing to move funds between them first. That plumbing has suddenly found product-market fit in an unlikely place: Zcash.
Major consumer wallets, including ZODL and Vizor, have integrated NEAR Intents to offer ZEC swaps to their users. Daily ZEC volume routed through the service jumped sixfold in a single day over the past week. In effect, NEAR has become the routing layer for one of the most heavily traded tokens on the market right now, and its native asset has followed the traffic.
The pattern is a familiar one in crypto fundamentals: when a chain captures real transaction volume, fee demand and network activity tend to be reflected in the token. What makes this case notable is the source of the volume. Zcash has been one of the strongest-performing assets of the cycle, and its holders now appear to be rotating and trading it through NEAR’s intent-based infrastructure rather than through centralised venues alone.
ZEC itself added 3% to trade just above $1,500, suggesting the swap traffic is not a sign of distribution but of active, two-way market-making in the asset. That distinction matters for whether NEAR’s volume gains prove durable.
The broader lesson for investors is that infrastructure tokens with real routing volume can decouple quickly from a flat market. While most large caps moved 2% or less, NEAR’s 23% surge was driven by a measurable, onchain change in usage. Whether the sixfold volume jump sustains will determine whether the token holds its gains or mean-reverts once the Zcash trading frenzy cools.
Asian equities and trade talks set the macro tone
The macro backdrop through the Asian session was constructive, and crypto traded in step with it.
MSCI’s Asia Pacific gauge climbed nearly 1%, led by technology shares in South Korea and Taiwan. The rally followed comments from U.S. officials describing trade talks with China as “very successful”, ahead of a summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping this week. S&P 500 futures rose less than 1% and Nasdaq 100 contracts a little more.
Energy markets added to the supportive picture. Brent crude fell 2% to just above $101 a barrel, its fourth straight decline. Cheaper oil eases inflation worries, and Treasury futures lifted in response. Falling inflation expectations are broadly supportive for risk assets, including cryptocurrencies, because they strengthen the case for monetary policy to remain accommodative or ease further.
For bitcoin, the macro alignment matters. The asset has increasingly traded as a high-beta play on global liquidity conditions, and a combination of easing inflation pressure, rising equities and a regulatory unlock in the United States is about as friendly a confluence as the market has seen in recent weeks.
The rest of the major tokens moved in modest fashion. BNB gained 2% to trade near $777. Ether and HYPE each picked up about 2%. XRP, DOGE, SOL and TRX rose 1% or less. The pattern was one of broad but shallow strength, with NEAR the clear outlier.
What to watch next
Three threads will shape the coming sessions.
First, the Trump-Xi summit. Describing preliminary talks as “very successful” is one thing; delivering a durable trade arrangement is another. Any disappointment at the summit would likely hit the same risk-sensitive positions that carried bitcoin higher, and the thin economic calendar Mei flagged means headline risk from the meeting will carry outsized weight.
Second, the Federal Reserve path. With the late-October meeting more than a month away, markets have only speeches and a single inflation print to trade on. Mei’s expectation of elevated volatility in the run-up cuts both ways: the short squeeze that lifted bitcoin over the weekend shows how quickly positioning can unwind when leverage builds on one side of the trade.
Third, and most specific to crypto, the tokenised-stock rollout. The SEC’s clearance has already moved prices once. The next test is execution: whether venues actually list tokenised equities, whether liquidity materialises onchain, and whether names like Coinbase, Robinhood and Circle convert the regulatory opening into revenue. Each milestone would be a fresh catalyst for the sector, and a plausible new source of correlation between crypto infrastructure tokens and traditional equity market volumes.
The closing read
Monday’s session offers a reasonably clean picture of what is driving this market right now: a regulatory unlock in the United States, a macro tailwind from Asia, and pockets of genuine onchain usage being rewarded with outsized gains.
Bitcoin above $81,000 on the back of an SEC decision and a short squeeze is a stronger foundation than a rally built on leverage alone, but it is not yet a trend confirmed by follow-through. The tokenised-stock story gives the move a fundamental anchor that previous weekend pumps lacked, and the NEAR surge demonstrates that usage-driven rallies are still available in a largely flat large-cap market. The risk is concentration: a market where one regulatory decision, one summit and one meeting of the Federal Reserve carry most of the directional weight is a market that can reverse on a single headline. Traders would do well to treat the next month of speeches, the inflation print and the Trump-Xi summit as the fixtures that will decide whether this bounce becomes something more substantial.
