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Morning Edition · Thursday, September 17, 2026Published at 1:11 AM EDT · New York
Bitcoin Holds Above $76,000 After the Fed Hike, With Zcash Up 23 Percent
Digital assets rose on a decision that removed uncertainty rather than added liquidity, while gold traded near $4,340 an ounce and silver near $64.
Bitcoin traded above $76,000 on Thursday, holding its level after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, and Zcash gained 23 percent, CoinDesk reported. Matt Huang, of the crypto investment firm Paradigm, used the move to argue that Zcash functions as a privacy complement to bitcoin rather than a competitor to it.
The immediate reaction to the decision was two-sided. The Block reported that bitcoin and ether swung in both directions during Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's press conference before settling higher. Traders had positioned for the quarter-point increase for days, so the decision removed an uncertainty rather than delivering a surprise.
The comparison with monetary metals is the useful one. Gold traded near $4,340 an ounce on Wednesday and silver near $64, according to commodity price data, with both metals firm ahead of the decision. Gold's strength reflects a straightforward judgement that a quarter point does not restore positive real returns on cash when inflation is accelerating.
Bitcoin's behaviour is harder to fit into the digital-gold description. It rose on the same day equity indices fell, but its moves through the press conference tracked short-term liquidity expectations rather than any monetary debasement thesis. The privacy trade in Zcash, meanwhile, is a narrower bet on transaction surveillance rather than on the value of money.
Part of a tracked trend
Bitcoin Trades as a Risk Asset, Not Digital Gold
At each geopolitical or inflationary stress point, bitcoin keeps trading with liquidity-sensitive risk assets rather than with monetary metals, so the digital-gold framing continues to fail exactly when investors most want it to hold.
What this means
The distinction matters for anyone holding digital assets as an inflation hedge. Bitcoin's intraday response to a central bank press conference shows it is still traded as a liquidity-sensitive asset, so it tends to fall when financial conditions tighten sharply, which is exactly the moment a debasement hedge is supposed to work. Gold near $4,340 and silver near $64 reflect a different buyer, one responding to real rates rather than to risk appetite. The two outcomes to separate are bitcoin decoupling upward as metals rise, which would support the store-of-value case, or bitcoin falling alongside equities in the next tightening scare, which would not.
What to watch
- How bitcoin trades on the next sharp equity decline, the cleanest test of whether it moves with risk assets or with monetary metals.
- Flows into spot bitcoin exchange-traded products, which show whether institutional buyers treat higher rates as a reason to reduce exposure.
- Whether gold holds above recent levels if the Fed delivers a second increase in October, which would indicate buyers expect real rates to stay negative.
Observations to monitor, not financial advice.
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