This week, Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading above $80,000 per token, and on Tuesday morning, it hit $81,000. That news will be music to the ears of cryptocurrency investors as it marks the first time that Bitcoin has traded above that level since January.
But what exactly is driving Bitcoin’s price to rise above the psychologically important barrier? Here are two of the biggest factors impacting BTC’s rise this week.
Movement in the Strait of Hormuz
Geopolitical tensions have made many assets highly volatile this year, particularly gold, stocks, and cryptocurrencies.
The latest geopolitical impact on these assets came from the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran in February, which is currently under a fragile ceasefire.
That war has led to Iran declaring the Strait of Hormuz—one of the world’s busiest and most critical supply lanes—closed, which has caused the price of oil to spike.
Over the weekend, President Trump rejected an Iranian peace proposal, which would have seen the strait reopen. But on Monday, Trump announced “Project Freedom,” a plan that will see the U.S. military escort oil tankers and other ships through the strait, thereby getting fuel supply chains moving again.
The news sent the price of a barrel of oil down to around $104 as of this writing, from highs of around $127 late last week.
As noted by 247WallSt.com, the relief over Trump’s plans to resume oil flows through the strait also buoyed investor sentiment in the crypto space.
Since the military’s project was announced, Bitcoin has risen by around 3.5%, and, crucially, the news helped send the price of a single token back over the psychologically important $80,000 barrier—a level it has not seen since the end of January.
But news about the Strait of Hormuz likely isn’t the only thing boosting crypto this week.
Progress on the Clarity Act
Over the weekend, news also broke that there was progress on the stalled crypto legislation known as the Clarity Act.
As Fast Company previously reported, the Clarity Act is designed to deliver regulatory certainty to the crypto industry.
One aspect of the Clarity Act will define which regulatory body oversees the industry, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
However, the Clarity Act will also determine whether third parties can offer yields on crypto holdings.
The banking industry opposes this due to fears that it could effectively pay crypto customers interest on their holdings, prompting people to park their money in crypto assets to earn interest rather than in traditional savings accounts.
Yields on crypto assets would be in the range of 3% to 5%—much higher than the few tenths of a percent most banks offer on cash savings.
This struggle between what the banking industry wants versus what the crypto industry wants has been one of the main reasons the bill has stalled.
But now, lawmakers have apparently reached a compromise. As CNBC notes, updated language in the Clarity Act would prevent crypto companies from paying yields on crypto holdings while allowing them to issue rewards linked to activity like trading or staking.
If this resolves the bottleneck that has been one of the primary reasons the legislation has stalled, the Clarity Act is one big step closer to becoming law, giving the crypto industry and crypto investors the regulatory certainty they seek. It seems like Bitcoin investors are already encouraged by the news.
Bitcoin’s rough 2026
Despite Bitcoin finally rising above the pshycoligically important $80,000 barrier, the cryptocurrency is still not in the green for the year.
As of this writing, one Bitcoin is worth around $80,977. That represents an 8.25% decline from where BTC was trading at the beginning of the year. Worse, over the past 12 months, BTC is down nearly 15%.
And things are even worse for Bitcoin when you look back at its all-time high of around $126,272, which was reached in early October 2025. Since then, Bitcoin has lost nearly 36% of its value.
In the near term, it’s likely that Bitcoin will remain somewhat volatile as investors continue watching and digesting geopolitical developments in the Gulf and legislative developments in Washington.