Bitcoin Jumps 44% in Third Quarter, Best Quarterly Return Since Q4 2024

Bitcoin (BTC) has surged 44% in the third quarter, marking its strongest quarterly return since the fourth quarter of 2024. It recently climbed above $85,000, its highest level in about eight months.

CoinDesk reported on Sept. 21 that Bitcoin rose to the $85,000 level that day. Its third-quarter gain of about 44% easily outpaced gold's 8.7% advance and gains of about 2% each for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq over the same period.

Altcoins have also strengthened. Ethereum (ETH), XRP, Solana (SOL), Uniswap (UNI) and Near Protocol (NEAR) have each gained 40% to 150% so far in the third quarter.

The recent rally was also attributed in part to changes in the U.S. regulatory environment. On Sept. 17, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission introduced a five-year temporary exemption allowing trading platforms that meet certain requirements to trade tokenized U.S. stocks.

Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, said he believes the market has already entered a bull market. Still, he added that investors should be wary of the risk of a sudden price correction.

Technically, Bitcoin has also moved above its May high. CoinDesk said that if the advance holds above $84,000, the cryptocurrency would enter the $84,000 to $97,000 range, an area that has recently seen relatively little trading activity.