Bitcoin hovered slightly above $81,000 during early Asian trading hours on Monday, showing a minor gain of under 1% across a 24-hour window and building upon gains achieved after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission paved the way for onchain trading of tokenized U.S. equities on Thursday, according to CoinDesk metrics.
Among prominent digital assets, NEAR stood out with a rally of approximately 23%, pushing its price just past $4. This price action stems from NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swap utility established on the NEAR network that allows a digital wallet to exchange one cryptocurrency for another across distinct blockchains without requiring users to manually transfer assets beforehand.
Widely adopted consumer wallets such as ZODL and Vizor have integrated the feature to support ZEC exchanges, causing daily ZEC transaction volumes channeled through the system to multiply sixfold over the course of a single week. Having established itself as the settlement layer for one of the market’s most heavily traded digital currencies, NEAR’s native asset climbed in tandem with the heightened activity.
In other digital asset markets, ZEC advanced 3% to trade just past $1,500, while BNB rose 2% to approach $777. Both Ether and HYPE climbed nearly 2%, whereas XRP, DOGE, SOL, and TRX recorded gains of 1% or less.
Meanwhile, traditional equities shaped market sentiment throughout the Asian trading session. The MSCI Asia Pacific index advanced nearly 1%, propelled primarily by technology equities in Taiwan and South Korea, following statements from U.S. officials characterizing recent discussions with China as “highly successful” ahead of an upcoming meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.
S&P 500 futures advanced by less than 1%, and Nasdaq 100 contracts experienced slightly stronger gains. Brent crude retreated 2% to trade just above $101 per barrel, marking its fourth consecutive session of losses, which helped alleviate inflation anxiety and supported Treasury futures.
Jeff Mei, chief operating officer at the digital asset exchange BTSE, attributed the weekend surge in bitcoin’s price to the SEC’s greenlight for onchain tokenized stock trading and the ensuing short liquidation wave. He anticipates a relatively quiet economic calendar for the week aside from upcoming commentary delivered by Federal Reserve officials.
“I’d anticipate heightened market volatility in the weeks leading up to that milestone,” Mei remarked regarding the late-October Federal Reserve gathering, noting that a full month of public speeches and a singular inflation reading remain before positions are finalized.
Read More: Coinbase, Robinhood, Circle could be early winners of SEC’s tokenized-stock push, analysts say
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/09/21/bitcoin-rises-above-usd81-000-while-near-jumps-23-on-zcash-swap-traffic.
