Bitcoin Runs to $81,000 and NEAR Adds 32% as Tokenization Tokens Lead

Bitcoin reached $81,000 on Friday and NEAR Protocol gained 32% over 24 hours, as DeFi and tokenization tokens led a rally that started in the Asia session and extended through the first 90 minutes of U.S. trading.

Equities did not follow. The S&P 500 was at 7,630, 0.1% below Thursday's 7,638 close, and the Nasdaq Composite at 26,434, 0.1% above Thursday's. The CBOE 10-year Treasury yield index rose to 4.99% from 4.95%, and Polymarket traders raised the odds of a second consecutive quarter-point Federal Reserve increase at the Oct. 27-28 meeting to 56.5% from 46.5% on Thursday.

The tokens that ran hardest are the ones tied to trading securities onchain, a day after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a five-year conditional exemption letting tokenized National Market System (NMS) stock trade through liquidity pools.

Bitcoin last changed hands at $80,829, up 5.8% over 24 hours and 2.1% over seven days, CoinGecko data shows. It opened the UTC day at $76,349 on Coinbase and traded as high as $81,000, a 5.6% gain and the biggest single session on that series since Aug. 21. Ether was at $2,580, up 5% on the day and down 1.8% on the week.

NEAR Protocol rose 32%, Starknet 27%, Arbitrum 26% and Uniswap 20%. Among the 15 biggest tokens, Hyperliquid added 12% to $92.20, Solana 9.6% to $110, Dogecoin 7.7% to $0.088, XRP 7.6% to $1.40, Monero 6.1% to $540 and BNB 4.7% to $759. Cardano gained 9.3% and Chainlink 8%.

Total crypto market value stood at $2.8 trillion on $110 billion of volume, with bitcoin dominance at 59% against 57% on Thursday, CoinGecko data shows. Weighted by market value, the 500 largest tokens rose 5.3% over 24 hours and 3.7% over seven days. Of the 125 largest non-stablecoin tokens, 111 rose, 13 fell and one was unchanged.

The Exemption Trade

The SEC's order, Release No. 34-106402, exempts a category it calls a Tokenized Securities Venue from the exchange definition in Section 3(a)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act. A venue may list 75 Tier 1 symbols and trade up to 0.25% of each stock's prior-month average daily volume, and tokenized shares must carry the same dividend rights, voting rights and claim on residual assets as the underlying stock. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said in a statement accompanying it that the Commission is "taking a significant step forward, within its statutory authority, to bring America's capital markets into the digital age," and that "this interim measure must be followed by durable rulemaking to ensure that onchain markets remain a viable pathway."

Andrew Yang, an analyst at Kaiko, put tokenized equity volume on Uniswap at about $800 million a day in commentary sent to reporters on Friday morning. "The SEC's condition is rights parity with the underlying stock, and it's not obvious how much of that volume would clear it," he said.

Uniswap listed tokenized equities on its web app, wallet and API on June 12, when it said more than $9.1 billion had been swapped in real-world asset pools on the protocol across 2.6 million transactions and 140,000 wallets. That post carries a disclaimer that tokenized securities reached through Uniswap products "may not represent direct ownership of the underlying securities they reference." Uniswap Labs launched Permissioned Pools on v4 in July and published the architecture on Aug. 24, writing that assets like tokenized funds "can now tap AMM liquidity."

UNI's high came in the hour beginning 10 a.m. UTC, 21% above the UTC-day open on Coinbase, before it eased back. Thursday closed 16% above its own open. The token turned over $2.2 billion against a $5.4 billion market value, and its seven-day gain of 35% is the second largest among the 25 biggest non-stablecoin tokens, behind NEAR's.

Arbitrum ran earlier. ARB's high came in the hour beginning 4 a.m. UTC, 29% above the UTC-day open, inside the Asia session. The chain holds $1.4 billion of total value locked, DefiLlama data shows. The Defiant reported on Friday that Morpho opened borrowing against Coinbase's tokenized stocks and that WisdomTree opened its tokenized Treasury fund to MoonPay's 35 million accounts.

NEAR Takes The Day

NEAR was the largest gainer among the 150 biggest tokens and has risen in each of the past four sessions on Coinbase, 61% since its Sept. 15 close. Its high of the day came in the hour beginning 3 p.m. UTC. The token turned over $2 billion against a $4.9 billion market value, a ratio of 40%, matched only by Uniswap among the 25 biggest non-stablecoin tokens.

No dated NEAR announcement accompanied the move. near.com, the account product built on NEAR Intents, lists perpetual futures, tokenized stocks, bonds and precious metals alongside crypto, and states that "balances and transactions stay confidential when you want them to, with control over what you reveal." The site puts all-time volume at $29 billion across 118 assets and 34 chains. NEAR's blog carries a post headlined "Announcing General Availability of Confidential Intents" that publishes no date in its page source.

Akedo holds the largest seven-day gain in either table at 78%. It led the decliners on Wednesday at 29% and the gainers on Tuesday at 79%. MemeCore's M rose 17% on $1.8 million of 24-hour volume against a $3 billion market value, a turnover ratio of 0.06%, and is left out of the table.

Tokyo Moves First

The Bank of Japan raised its guideline for the uncollateralized overnight call rate to around 1.25% on Friday, effective Sept. 24, on a 7-2 vote, according to the bank's statement. Board members Toichiro Asada and Ayano Sato dissented. The yen was at 157.04 to the dollar against 156.01 at its last published close, on Sept. 16.

Andrew Melville, head of research at Block Scholes, set the two central banks side by side in a note dated Friday. "While the Fed's Summary of Economic Projections indicated further hikes before year end, BoJ chief Ueda described the move as 'preemptive,'" he wrote. "The yen has sold off against the dollar over the past 5 days, returning to early-September levels and making a stronger case for continued intervention in the yen."

Melville tied the crypto tape to the passing of the week's scheduled events. "Short-dated implied volatility levels for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) have fallen strongly after the passing of this week's macro event risks, indicating that calm has temporarily returned to the markets," he wrote. On positioning: "crypto derivatives markets are pricing strongly for short-term upside despite the failure of the CLARITY Act and Fed hawkishness, with 7-day volatility smiles skewed strongly towards bullish positioning in call options."

Polymarket priced a quarter-point increase at the Oct. 27-28 Federal Open Market Committee meeting at 56.5% and no change at 43.5%, against 46.5% and 52.5% at the same point on Thursday. The event has carried $7.2 million of volume, up from $6 million. The FOMC lifted its target range a quarter point to 3.75%-4% on Wednesday on a 12-0 vote, according to the Fed's statement.

The Senate voted 49-50 on Tuesday against taking up the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, 11 votes short of the 60 needed for cloture. The Defiant reported the tally on Tuesday and the SEC and CFTC chairmen's response on Wednesday.

Front-month Comex gold futures were at $4,397 an ounce against Thursday's $4,400 settle. Brent crude was at $99.76 a barrel, down 4.8% from Thursday's $104.82 close and below $100 for the first time since Sept. 9. Most of the decline came in the half hour from 7:30 a.m. UTC, six hours before the move in bitcoin.

Flows Turn Positive

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs took in $159.5 million on Thursday, their first daily inflow since Monday, according to Farside Investors. BlackRock's IBIT accounted for $183.7 million, against outflows of $16.6 million at Fidelity's FBTC and $7.6 million at VanEck's HODL. The four sessions of this week produced a net outflow of $426.9 million. Spot ether ETFs lost $39.3 million on Thursday against $224.1 million on Wednesday, with BlackRock's ETHA at $42.9 million of the outflow. Friday's rows had not published as of 11:05 a.m. ET.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index read 56, or greed, on Friday, against 50 on Thursday and 51 on Wednesday, according to Alternative.me. The index publishes once a day at 00:00 UTC, so Friday's rally is not in the reading.

DeFi total value locked stood at $89.9 billion, up 3.2% from Thursday's close and 3.9% over seven days, DefiLlama data shows. Stablecoin supply was $311 billion, down 0.2% over seven days and up 1% over 30 days, net redemptions of $618 million since Sept. 11 against net issuance of $3.2 billion since Aug. 19.

Bitway Gives It Back

Bitway fell 9.3% for the second consecutive session and holds a 33% seven-day gain. It ranks 53rd by market value at $1.8 billion on $5 million of 24-hour volume, a turnover ratio of 0.28%.

Rain and LEO Token are the only two of the 20 biggest non-stablecoin tokens that fell. Rain holds the largest seven-day decline among them at 21% and ranks sixteenth by market value at $9.1 billion on $29.5 million of volume. Falcon Finance holds the largest seven-day decline in the table at 23%.

Hyperliquid's 12% gain is the largest among the 15 biggest non-stablecoin tokens. The Defiant reported on Wednesday that Kraken's parent plans permissioned Hyperliquid perpetuals for U.S. traders. Zcash rose 3.1% to $1,470 and reached $1,530 on Coinbase, above Thursday's $1,510 high, and holds a 23% seven-day gain.

Prices and market data as of 11:05 a.m. ET on Sept. 18, 2026.