Bitcoin Magazine
Bitcoin Price Trades Near $79,600 as Oil Rebounds and Bank of England Hikes Rates
Bitcoin price traded near $79,600 on Thursday morning, up about 2% from a day earlier but roughly $21,900 below its price one year ago, after slipping back under $80,000 as oil prices recovered and the Bank of England raised interest rates, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data.
Bitcoin changed hands at $79,632 at 8:05 a.m. ET, with a market cap of about $1.60 trillion and roughly $35.2 billion in trading volume over the past day.
The move gives back a slice of Wednesday’s rally. Bitcoin price held near $80,000 through Wednesday afternoon and stayed above that level overnight, peaking just under $80,900 around 5 p.m. ET. It dipped below $80,000 in the 7 a.m. ET hour on Thursday, as stock futures turned mixed and oil firmed.
The pullback is small next to the week’s swing. Bitcoin sat near $75,600 on election night, so Thursday’s price is still more than 5% above that low.
Oil and rates set the tone
Oil drove Wednesday’s relief rally, and it is now taking some of that back. Brent crude futures rose $1.53, or 1.6%, to $96.15 a barrel on Thursday, while West Texas Intermediate added 52 cents to $88.64. Both benchmarks fell more than 8% on Wednesday to settle at their lowest since Aug. 31.
“The situation in the Middle East is still unresolved and that’s why there is some modest recovery in prices at the moment,” UBS commodity analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.
That matters for the bitcoin price because energy has been the main channel from the Iran war into inflation and interest rates. Cheaper crude eases pressure on the Federal Reserve. A rebound does the opposite.
The Bank of England made that link explicit on Thursday. Its Monetary Policy Committee voted 8-1 to raise Bank Rate by a quarter point to 4%, its first hike in more than three years, with the one dissenter, Catherine Mann, pushing for a half-point move. The bank said U.K. inflation is now expected to rise to around 5% by the middle of next year, citing energy prices tied to a conflict “now in its ninth month.”
CNBC called it the last major central bank to start tightening since the war began, a reminder that global rates are still moving against risk assets.
Stocks cool, ETFs return
U.S. stock futures split Thursday morning after the Dow’s best session since April 2025. Dow futures rose 0.5% and S&P 500 futures added 0.1%, while Nasdaq-100 futures dropped about 0.5% as chip and data center stocks stayed under pressure.
Fund demand picked up. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs took in a net $74.6 million on Wednesday, ending a three-session run of outflows that totaled about $1.16 billion. Fidelity’s FBTC drew $236.7 million, more than offsetting a $201.2 million outflow from BlackRock’s IBIT.
Supply from miners remains a weight. Riot Platforms (RIOT) disclosed Wednesday that it has sold 20,264 bitcoin this year to fund AI data centers, leaving it with 2,418 BTC.
What comes next for bitcoin price
The policy overhang has not gone away. House Democrats are already sketching their own market structure bill with a bigger role for the SEC, and the committees that oversee crypto pass to Democrats in January.
The data calendar is the nearer test for the bitcoin price. Weekly jobless claims land at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday, the October jobs report follows Friday, October CPI comes Nov. 10 and the Fed’s next decision is Dec. 9, as laid out in Tuesday’s preview.
Bitcoin price remains about 37% below its all-time high near $126,080. The test now is whether ETF buyers keep showing up if oil keeps climbing.
At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is near $79,600.
This post Bitcoin Price Trades Near $79,600 as Oil Rebounds and Bank of England Hikes Rates first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
