Bitcoin erases Monday's rally as oil tops $108 and yields near 5%

A surge in oil prices and a brief break above 5% on the 10-year Treasury yield knocked risk appetite on Monday, and bitcoin gave back its regulatory-rally gains overnight. As of 05:57 UTC on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $77,597.33, down 0.8% from the prior UTC-day close of $78,189.21 and well off Monday's intraday high near $79,600, reached around 20:00 UTC. The reversal tracked a broader risk-off shift: the 10-year Treasury yield touched 5.01% Monday — its first trip above that level since 2023 — before easing back to roughly 4.94%, as Brent crude spiked on the continued shutdown of Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline and CME FedWatch-implied odds of a Fed rate hike this week rose to around 90%.

What to watch

Two catalysts dominate the day. The Senate's CLARITY Act cloture vote is scheduled for 2:15pm ET (18:15 UTC), needing 60 votes to advance the crypto market-structure bill; the White House agreed to new ethics language over the weekend to try to win over holdout Democrats, but the outcome is far from assured — odds on 2026 passage had collapsed from 82% in February to around 16% by late August. Separately, the Fed's two-day FOMC meeting begins today, with Wednesday's decision accompanied by a fresh Summary of Economic Projections; CME FedWatch odds sit near 90% for a 25-basis-point hike.

Markets

The S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 0.8% on Monday, with the Dow down about 152 points, as chipmakers extended a selloff tied to the weekend's AI-slowdown warnings from Anthropic's Dario Amodei, echoed by OpenAI's Sam Altman and xAI's Elon Musk — a semiconductor gauge fell 5.9% — compounded by the oil spike and surging bond yields.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 closed up 0.4% at 10,697.57, outperforming on its heavy oil-and-mining weighting amid the crude rally, while Germany's DAX fell about 0.3% and France's CAC 40 slid about 0.4%, both weighed down by tech and industrial exposure to the AI-linked selloff. The Stoxx 600 was little changed to slightly lower.

Commodities

Brent crude jumped to $108-109 a barrel, a roughly four-month high and up 3.3% on the day, after Saudi Arabia's East-West Crude Oil Pipeline — its main export route bypassing the Strait of Hormuz — stayed shut following drone strikes launched from Iraqi territory on September 10-11 amid the wider Iran war. Saudi crude supply fell to its lowest level in more than three decades in August. Gold held near $4,300 an ounce, on track for a third straight weekly decline, pressured by rate-hike bets and a firmer dollar.

Crypto

Bitcoin traded at $77,597.33 (-0.8% from the 00:00 UTC open) and ether at $2,496.52 (-0.8%). XRP was the standout loser, at $1.4086 (-1.0%), giving back a meaningful chunk of Monday's regulatory-optimism rally — which had taken it as high as $1.4771, up 10.1% on the day — as today's CLARITY Act vote looms. Solana fell 1.2% to $101.35, dogecoin eased 0.5% to $0.08325, and BNB was roughly flat, up 0.2% at $722.02. The CLARITY Act cloture vote later today is the live, unresolved regulatory catalyst for the sector.

What it means for crypto trading

Today's two real catalysts are the CLARITY Act cloture vote and Wednesday's FOMC decision. A failed cloture vote or a hawkish Fed surprise — a hike paired with a hawkish dot plot — would likely extend the overnight pullback across majors, while a successful 60-vote outcome or a dovish Fed tone could reignite Monday's rally, with XRP the most levered to the regulatory outcome specifically.

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