Bitcoin Reclaims Its Yearly Moving Average After 10 Months

Bitcoin has climbed 8.10 percent since posting Wednesday’s low of 75,064 USD, and in doing so it has cleared a threshold that has capped every rally for the better part of a year: the 365-day moving average, currently sitting at 80,701 USD.

According to AMBCrypto’s analysis of the BTC/USDT chart, the recovery from July’s lows near 60,000 USD and the latest resurgence from the mid-76,000s have together driven Bitcoin back above its yearly moving average for the first time since November 2025. At the time of writing, BTC trades around 80,500 USD, holding the reclaim in early Asian trading on Sept. 20.

The technical milestone lands at a moment when the fundamental backdrop argues for the opposite outcome. The CLARITY Act failed in the Senate on a 49-50 cloture vote. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates another 25 basis points this week — its latest hike in a tightening cycle that markets now expect could extend into 2027. The Bank of Japan has raised rates as well, draining global liquidity from a second direction. Inflation pressures and a firm U.S. dollar index round out the headwind list. Bitcoin absorbing all of that and still pushing higher is, in the reading of crypto researcher Bull Theory, reminiscent of the 2023 market bottom — the period when BTC ground quietly from the 20,000s toward a new bull cycle while most participants waited for a final capitulation that never came.

Strong hands are accumulating at record pace

The on-chain picture backs up the price resilience. CryptoQuant data shows long-term holder supply — coins dormant longer than 155 days — trending steadily higher since February, while short-term holder supply has declined over the same stretch. Analyst Funding Vest, writing on CryptoQuant, described it as a record phase of accumulation.

The mechanics of that pattern matter. Short-term holders are, by definition, the cohort most likely to sell into strength; their supply shrinking means weak hands have been transferring coins to patient buyers for seven straight months. Every coin that migrates from a trader’s hot wallet to a long-term holder’s cold storage constricts the effective float. If demand continues to build — through ETFs, treasury companies, and the retail channel — against a shrinking spendable supply, the classic setup for a supply shock forms.

That is the bullish half of the ledger. The cautionary half comes from analyst Joao Wedson, who notes that trading activity remains subdued compared with previous bull market levels. The number of trades has not expanded the way it did in prior cycles, which reads as weak retail participation. In Wedson’s framing, Bitcoin may still be in the process of breaking its bearish trend rather than having fully transitioned into a bull run — a market carried by conviction holders rather than broad enthusiasm.

Why the yearly moving average matters

The 365-day moving average is a blunt but effective regime marker. It flattened and declined through the post-2025 drawdown, and rallies that approached it from below repeatedly failed — most recently the September push toward 82,000 USD that stalled and collapsed to the 75,064 USD low after the Fed’s rate decision. A sustained reclaim flips the reference point: dips toward the average become support tests rather than ceiling tests, and trend-following systems that key off yearly structure begin to rotate long.

The context for Wednesday’s dip is itself telling. The selloff to 75,064 USD came as markets priced rising odds of the Fed hike — and once the hike actually landed, Bitcoin absorbed the news and reversed. A market that rallies on the realization of bad news is a market that has already discounted it. By that logic, the pullback from 82,000 USD earlier in September was the pricing-in, and the current recovery is the repricing.

What could still go wrong

None of this makes the reclaim invulnerable. Further rate hikes remain on the table, the dollar index is firm, and the CLARITY failure shifts regulatory relief further out — a delay rather than a cancellation, but a delay that keeps institutional fence-sitters on the fence. Leverage across the broader crypto market sits at its highest level in nearly a year, which raises the cost of any macro surprise. And a yearly moving average sitting at 80,701 USD with price at 80,500 USD means the reclaim is, at press time, a matter of a few dozen dollars — hardly an unambiguous breakout.

The constructive interpretation, though, is hard to dismiss: record long-term accumulation, a shrinking short-term float, resilience against a hiking Fed, and a first yearly-MA reclaim in ten months, all arriving together. If Bitcoin can hold the average on a closing basis through the final week of September — historically its worst month, currently modestly positive — it would book its first winning quarter in a year and enter Q4 with the trend structure, the holder base, and the sentiment all pointing the same direction for the first time since late 2025.