The crypto rally stalled on Thursday as stocks continued to climb.
Bitcoin was trading at $80,945 during Asian hours, down 0.7% over 24 hours but still up 6.9% over the week. Ether (ETH) slipped 2% to $2,326, and was the main laggard, falling 4.4% to $0.1106 after last week’s run brought its 30-day return into double digits.
XRP and BNB remained more stable, with XRP at $1.41 and BNB up 1.3% to $643. Solana zoomed 6.1% for the week to $88.06.
The pullback came as global stock markets hit new record highs on hopes for a ceasefire between the United States and Iran, with reports indicating the two countries are working on a proposal to end the nearly ten-week conflict.
The MSCI All Country World Index rose 0.3% and the MSCI Asia gauge jumped 1.9% to a record, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 hitting an intraday high. South Korea overtook Canada as the world’s seventh largest stock market by value, with Softbank up 18% and TSMC up 3.3%. Wall Street indicators closed at all-time highs on Wednesday, with about 80% of S&P 500 companies beating earnings estimates, Bloomberg reported.
Brent crude held below $102 a barrel on speculation that a U.S.-Iran deal would help resume oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, while gold climbed for a third straight day to $4,700 an ounce on bets of Fed rate cuts and easing inflation expectations.
Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, said in a note that bitcoin’s next test would be at the 200-day moving average, around $83,300. A moving average smoothes short-term volatility by averaging an asset’s price over a set period of time, and the 200-day version is among the most closely watched long-term trend indicators by traders.
“A firm consolidation above this level would be a further sign of bullish dominance,” he wrote, adding that the first such sign occurred a month ago, when bitcoin held above the 50-day moving average. He signaled that a near-term profit-taking phase was likely as bitcoin neared $83,000, “allowing some of the gains to be realized.”
The structural context continues to support this evolution. Tether’s market cap has increased by $5.9 billion over the past 60 days, according to analyst Darkfost, reversing a $2 billion monthly outflow trend that continued into early 2026. Such issuances are seen as a source of new capital entering the crypto market.
Separately, Morgan Stanley reported this week that U.S. banks may eventually be able to hold bitcoin on their balance sheets despite current regulatory barriers, with the bank already operating a bitcoin-based ETP and planning to launch spot crypto trading on its wealth management platform later this year.
Western Union launched its own stablecoin, USDPT, on Solana to bypass traditional interbank settlement times.
Elsewhere, BitMine added more than 100,000 ETH for the third week in a row, bringing its ether reserves to 5.18 million ETH worth around $13 billion, or 4.29% of the total supply.
