Bitcoin rises 0.7% to $75,960.7

Bitcoin dropped more than 3% on Tuesday after the U.S. Senate failed to pass the Clarity Act with a 49-50 vote

Bitcoin on Wednesday erased losses from earlier in the day and turned higher. The move came after the U.S. central bank hiked interest rates as widely expected. The crypto had earlier been weighed down by the U.S. Senate’s rejection of industry legislation.

Bitcoin was last up 0.7% to $75,960.7 by 21:50 GMT.

The central bank unanimously raised its federal funds target range by a quarter percentage point to 3.75%-4.00%, the first rate increase since July 2023. The central bank’s updated projections showed a median policy rate of 4.1% at the end of 2026, implying at least one more hike this year.

Central bank Chair Kevin Warsh said the decision reflected a strengthening U.S. economy, a lack of improvement in summer inflation trends and geopolitical developments. He also said policymakers agreed broader financial conditions were not restrictive enough.

Bitcoin dropped more than 3% on Tuesday after the U.S. Senate failed to pass the Clarity Act with a 49-50 vote.

The act, a landmark bill to create a regulatory structure for cryptocurrencies and digital assets in the country, had been cleared by the U.S. Senate Banking Committee in May, but had stalled since amid an inability to wrangle the 60 votes needed for approval.

Still, several crypto proponents, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, opined that U.S. market regulators – chiefly the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) – could still create comparable regulations for crypto without needing Congressional approval.

The outcome of yesterday’s Senate vote was unfortunate. Americans deserve regulatory clarity, legal certainty, and consumer protections in crypto asset markets. President Trump promised to deliver a future-proof crypto asset regulatory market structure one way or the other, and we will help him get the job done using our existing statutory authorities, Michael Selig, Chairman of the CFTC, said in a statement.

Tellingly, tokens most closely tied to pending U.S. regulatory treatment, along with crypto-linked equities, fell considerably harder than Bitcoin itself – a sign markets are pricing this as a setback for a specific corner of the industry rather than a verdict on crypto broadly, Iliya Kalchev, analyst at Nexo Dispatch, said.