Bitcoin again closed in on the $81,000 mark on Thursday before pulling back, extending a stellar week for the largest cryptocurrency.

The leading cryptocurrency was recently trading at $80,236 after climbing as high as $80,793 earlier in the day in New York. Bitcoin is now up more than 2% over the past day after gaining 10% over the course of a week. The rebound still leaves the coin well below the all-time high above $120,000 it set in October 2025.

The coin's rise comes ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's keynote on Friday, where he is expected to discuss digital payments — including crypto. It will be Warsh's first major speech as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Warsh, who served as a Fed governor from 2006 to 2011 and has made pro-Bitcoin statements in the past, has been reluctant to lower interest rates; President Donald Trump, who nominated Warsh, has pushed since last year for borrowing costs to come down. Bitcoin has historically performed well in a low interest rate environment.

Sentiment has tracked the price higher. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, published by data provider Alternative.me, condenses market volatility, momentum, social-media activity, bitcoin's market dominance and search trends into a single 0-to-100 reading, with higher scores signaling greater greed.

JUST IN: The Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index is now up to 71, "Greed" Bullish pic.twitter.com/FM05AzGYWt — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 27, 2026

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City will hold its annual economic policy symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where central bankers, Federal Reserve officials, policymakers and academics will gather to discuss "Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy." The mountain retreat has a history of marking policy turning points: Ben Bernanke used his 2010 keynote to lay the groundwork for a second round of quantitative easing, and Jerome Powell unveiled the Fed's flexible average inflation targeting framework there in 2020. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City website, this year's event will touch on how "recent years have seen a dramatic increase in innovation in financial intermediation and payments," including new technologies such as "cryptocurrencies and stablecoins."

Bitcoin's run started last week, when it sustained its biggest rally in years following positive regulatory news and an announcement from the U.S. Treasury.

While a vote on the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act has been delayed until September, President Trump last week said that the bill was a "very, very powerful" piece of legislation and urged lawmakers to get it over the line. The proposed law would establish a framework for distinguishing between digital assets that are securities, commodities or payment stablecoins — legislation that the crypto industry has long called for. The bill would build on the federal payment-stablecoin framework Trump signed into law in July 2025, the first such statute on the books.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also announced last week that the department would double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks. The news sent yields lower; lower long-term yields reduce the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold, and generally support risk-on sentiment.

Attention now turns to Warsh's keynote on Friday, with the Clarity Act vote next on the calendar in September.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine — reporting by Mathew Di Salvo.