Bitcoin climbed back above the $85,000 mark on Thursday, trading at $85,420.89 and gaining 2.0% in 24 hours, according to Coin Edition. The global crypto market cap rose 1.0% to $2.99 trillion. Ether changed hands at $2,718.11, up 1.1%, while BNB advanced 0.7% to $775.73, XRP added 0.9% to $1.51 and Solana rose 1.6% to $120.29.
Citigroup raised its 12-month Bitcoin price target from $82,000 to $113,000, citing stronger crypto activity and renewed ETF inflows. The bank also lifted its Ethereum forecast from $2,240 to $3,028. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded roughly $2.4 billion in net inflows during the trading week ending September 25, pulling 2026 ETF flows back into positive territory.
Broader sentiment improved after U.S. jobs data showed employers added only 29,000 jobs in September and unemployment rose to 4.2%. The weak labor market reduced expectations for aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes, supporting riskier assets. Comments from Fed officials further eased near-term rate increase expectations.
Strategy continued accumulating, purchasing another 1,665 BTC to bring its total holdings to 847,666 BTC. Bitcoin dominance moved close to 60% late in the week. Crypto-linked stocks such as Strategy, Coinbase and Robinhood climbed alongside the digital asset.
On the regulatory front, the SEC proposed a new framework that could allow registered investment advisers to self-custody certain digital assets when a suitable third-party custodian is unavailable. In Europe, Binance faces scrutiny over whether it is properly applying the EU’s MiCA “reverse solicitation” exemption.
Ethereum drew attention after a MetaMask validator incident involving about 0.36 ETH in diverted staking rewards, prompting precautionary validator exits. Separately, Tether announced Utexo, a project aiming to bring USDT functionality to Bitcoin, while Ethereum Layer-2 network Blast said it is shutting down after assets fell from more than $2 billion at their peak.
