Bitcoin rebounds above $81,000 as Asian chip rally spills into crypto, pepe jumps 9%

Bitcoin rose above $81,400 as Asian chip stocks rallied, with frog-themed memecoin pepe adding 9%.

Bitcoin BTC$84,459.46 rose around 0.8% since midnight UTC to $81,400 on Monday after dropping below $80,000 on Tuesday. The altcoin market also showed strength, with ether ETH$2,490.55 gaining 0.9% and the CoinDesk Memecoin Index advancing 1.3%.

Asian chip stocks led a rebound in AI shares. South Korea’s Kospi index jumped 6.6% as SK Hynix surged around 11% after reporting a sevenfold jump in profit. Nasdaq-100 index futures gained 0.5%.

The Federal Reserve is due to announce its decision on U.S. interest rates at 18:00 UTC, with CME’s FedWatch tool showing around a 92% chance of no change. Traders will be looking to Chair Kevin Wash’s press conference for clues on whether any increases are on the cards.

U.S. spot ETFs took in $176 million on Tuesday, a second day of inflows, while Alphabet GOOG and Microsoft MSFT report earnings after markets close.

Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years.