Bitcoin Holds Near $81,000. Fed Hikes Rates, Solana Whales Shift Tokens
Redakcja CryptoPulsar ·
Bitcoin trades at $81,060 and slips 0.12 percent on the day, with total market cap at $2.87 trillion. Behind the flat tape sits the first Federal Reserve rate hike since 2023, 74 Solana whale transfers, and a 37 percent weekly jump in Zcash.
The crypto market on September 20, 2026 showed a face that is hard not to call a freeze. Bitcoin trades at $81,060 and loses just 0.12 percent over 24 hours. Ethereum sits at $2,634 with a 0.04 percent decline. Total market capitalization stands at $2.87 trillion. Behind this flat tape sit two signals that cannot be ignored. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since 2023, and on Solana 74 large whale transfers above 5,000 SOL were recorded within a single hour, including three moves of 950,000, 941,000 and 784,000 tokens. At the same time Zcash enters the top ten with a market cap of $25.2 billion and gains 37 percent over seven days. The review below is based solely on session numbers and shows where the market is truly breathing, and where it is only pretending to be calm.
In the top ten the picture is a split, not a panic. BNB gains 0.81 percent to $768 with a market cap of $102 billion. TRON rises 1.10 percent to $0.3430. Figure Heloc adds 1.52 percent and closes the list at position No. 10 with a market cap of $23.1 billion, but with daily volume of just $345,000. On the other side of the tape XRP falls 1.64 percent to $1.41, and Solana loses 0.92 percent to $110.10.
The loudest quiet fact of the session is stablecoin liquidity. Tether records $48.39 billion in volume, clearly higher than Bitcoin's $23.76 billion and Ethereum's $10.94 billion. USDC adds $11.50 billion in turnover. The data suggest that capital is circulating in stablecoin pairs even as large-asset prices barely move.
Top gainers and losers in the top ten
The table below gathers the ten largest projects by market cap. 24-hour percentages are rounded to two decimal places, market caps are given in billions and trillions of dollars.
| Crypto | Price | 24h | Cap. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | $81,060 | -0.12% | $1.63T |
| Ethereum | $2,634 | -0.04% | $321B |
| Tether | $0.9997 | +0.01% | $183B |
| BNB | $768 | +0.81% | $102B |
| XRP | $1.41 | -1.64% | $88.4B |
| USDC | $0.9997 | +0.00% | $74.2B |
| Solana | $110.10 | -0.92% | $64.7B |
| TRON | $0.3430 | +1.10% | $32.6B |
| Zcash | $1,485 | +0.35% | $25.2B |
| Figure Heloc | $1.017 | +1.52% | $23.1B |
Over a seven-day horizon the picture is completely different from the daily chart. Solana gains 9.10 percent, BNB 6.50 percent, Ethereum 5.10 percent, Bitcoin 4.90 percent, XRP 3.80 percent. Zcash stands apart from the pack at plus 37.00 percent. TRON in this view adds only 0.50 percent, and Figure Heloc 1.50 percent. The data suggest that the September 20 session is more a pause after a weekly rebound than the start of a new downtrend.
| Crypto | 7d | 24h Volume | ATH |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zcash | +37.00% | $1.22B | $3,192 |
| Solana | +9.10% | $3.10B | $293.31 |
| BNB | +6.50% | $965M | $1,370 |
| Ethereum | +5.10% | $10.94B | $4,946 |
| Bitcoin | +4.90% | $23.76B | $126,080 |
| XRP | +3.80% | $2.33B | $3.65 |
| Figure Heloc | +1.50% | $345K | $1.061 |
| TRON | +0.50% | $443M | $0.4313 |
Beyond the top ten: Ethena up, Filecoin down
By category, the strongest move of the day is Ethena at plus 6.38 percent in DeFi. On layer two, Arbitrum rises 3.20 percent and POL (formerly MATIC) 2.12 percent. In the Layer 1 UTXO group Litecoin adds 1.66 percent, while Bitcoin Cash loses 0.74 percent. Hyperliquid in DeFi gains 0.90 percent, Uniswap 0.52 percent.
| Crypto | Category | 24h |
|---|---|---|
| Ethena | DeFi | +6.38% |
| Arbitrum | Layer 2 | +3.20% |
| POL | Layer 2 | +2.12% |
| Litecoin | Layer 1 UTXO | +1.66% |
| Filecoin | Oracles and infra | -6.21% |
| JasmyCoin | Gaming and NFT | -3.00% |
| Quant | Oracles and infra | -2.77% |
| Mantle | Layer 2 | -2.58% |
| MemeCore | Memecoins | -2.26% |
| Dogecoin | Memecoins | -1.82% |
Memecoins and gaming are not holding up in this session. Dogecoin falls 1.82 percent, Shiba Inu 0.94 percent, Pudgy Penguins 1.81 percent, JasmyCoin 3.00 percent. In infrastructure the weakest is Filecoin at minus 6.21 percent, and Quant loses 2.77 percent. Chainlink is practically standing still at plus 0.06 percent. The data suggest rotation into selected DeFi and L2 tokens rather than into memes.
Bitcoin: 1.08 million transactions, RSI near 34 and greed at 71
Bitcoin remains the market's largest asset with a capitalization of $1.63 trillion and a rank of No. 1. The $81,060 price sits well below the all-time high of $126,080. Daily volume is $23.76 billion. There are 20,087,096 BTC in circulation out of a maximum of 21,000,000. The weekly change of plus 4.90 percent shows that today's minus 0.12 percent is a nuance, not a breakdown.
The CryptoPulsar market cycle module scores Bitcoin at 30.8 out of 50 points. Over 24 hours the network processed about 1.08 million transactions with turnover around $23 billion, so the chain is being used intensively despite a slight pullback in price. Daily RSI, the strength of the price move, stands at about 34, closer to oversold than to euphoria. MACD, the difference between fast and slow price momentum, remains bullish.
The perpetual futures funding rate is low and neutral, around 0.006 percent, with no signs of overheated leverage. The Fear and Greed Index, however, stands at 71, in the greed zone. This is a rare divergence.