NEW YORK, May 11, 2026, 16:09 (EDT)
- Bitcoin steadied near $82,000 after failing to hold a break above a closely watched 200-day moving average.
- Traders weighed fresh U.S.-Iran tension against ETF inflows and a coming Senate review of the CLARITY Act.
- Strategy added 535 bitcoin last week, keeping corporate treasury demand in view.
Bitcoin held near $82,000 on Monday, steadying after a weekend rebound lost force as traders weighed renewed U.S.-Iran tensions against rising expectations that Washington could move closer to a crypto market framework this week. Bitcoin was recently at $82,034, up 0.7% on the day, after touching an intraday high of $82,394.
The move matters now because bitcoin is again trading near a technical and policy fault line. TradingView said the token made another attempt at its 200-day moving average near $82,000, a long-term trend gauge watched by traders, but slipped back after two failed runs through that area.
Market support came from fund flows and regulatory hopes. The Economic Times reported that bitcoin traded near $81,000 despite stronger U.S. jobs data, with sentiment helped by ETF inflows and optimism around the Senate’s coming CLARITY Act vote.
The CLARITY Act, a bill meant to define when crypto tokens are securities, commodities or something else, is set for review by the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on May 14. Committee chair Tim Scott said the panel would hold an executive session that day, Reuters reported.
Akshat Siddhant, lead quant analyst at Mudrex, told The Economic Times that bitcoin was holding above $81,000 even after stronger-than-expected U.S. nonfarm payroll data cut hopes for near-term rate reductions. He said buying interest over the weekend was sustained by optimism around the Senate vote on the CLARITY Act.
U.S. payrolls rose by 115,000 in April, above economists’ expectations for 62,000 jobs, while unemployment held at 4.3%, Reuters reported. That kind of labor resilience can weigh on speculative assets because it gives the Federal Reserve less reason to cut interest rates soon.
But ETFs kept the bid alive. Siddhant said bitcoin ETFs recorded $630 million in net inflows last week, while TradingView put spot bitcoin ETF inflows at roughly $620 million and said those funds had drawn more than $3.4 billion over a six-week stretch. An ETF is an exchange-traded fund, a listed product that lets investors gain exposure without buying the token directly.
Geopolitics capped the rally. President Donald Trump said the ceasefire with Iran was “on life support” after rejecting Tehran’s response to a U.S. peace proposal, Reuters reported, keeping the Strait of Hormuz and energy-market risks in focus. Reuters
Oil prices settled almost 3% higher on Monday after Trump’s comments, with Brent crude at $104.21 a barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate at $98.07. Higher energy prices can feed inflation fears and make rate cuts harder, a poor mix for risk assets such as crypto.
Corporate demand stayed in the frame. Strategy said in a filing that it acquired 535 bitcoin for $43 million between May 4 and May 10, at an average purchase price of $80,340, lifting its holdings to 818,869 bitcoin.
The broader crypto market was mixed but firm. Ethereum traded near $2,343, while Solana was near $98.37, keeping pace with bitcoin’s stabilization rather than breaking out on its own.
Avinash Shekhar, co-founder and CEO of Pi42, told The Economic Times that crypto was moving at the intersection of geopolitics, macro data and liquidity expectations, with investors watching the U.S.-Iran conflict, U.S. CPI data and Federal Reserve signals.
The risk is that the good news is already doing a lot of work. A failed Senate markup, another spike in oil, or a hot inflation reading could push traders back toward the $80,000 support area; Riya Sehgal, research analyst at Delta Exchange, said bitcoin and ether were consolidating after a sharp recovery as markets paused near resistance.
