Crypto comes to life

September historically has been a rough month for crypto. That held true. And now it's October.

Or should we call it, as at least one crypto industry member already is, "Uptober," with Bitcoin earlier today leaping by $4,000.

As of Friday at 8:45 a.m. (EST), BTC's price had risen by 9% over 24 hours to about $47,600.

In less than one hour, as the East Coast of the U.S. slept, some $270 million worth of positions were liquidated in what Cointelegraph called a classic “short squeeze.”

“Goodbye bears,” declared analyst and Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe, popping off following the sudden surge.

Also crowing, crypto asset manager Lex Moskovski, tweeting: "Say hi to Uptober."

Wake me up when September ends, some stock market traders have been muttering.

Rise and shine! Because it’s Oct. 1 and … uh-oh … U.S. equities futures fell 300 points in the early morning hours. Did stocks not get the memo?

Inflation concerns are weighing indices down. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all just had their worst months of the year.

The S&P fell 4.8% in the 30 days comprising calendar month number nine. Prior, the index notched a seven-month winning streak.

Of the 11 S&P sectors, ten suffered losses in September. Energy stocks rose.

Worst performing sector: materials stocks (-7.4%).

Add slow growth and the prospect of higher interest rates to the wall of worry worrying Wall Street.

Given a chance to grill U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell about the central bank's pandemic response, Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) instead turned his attention to other pressing topics.

The Congressman came right out and asked Powell point blank: "do you intend to ban or limit the use of cryptocurrencies?”

 "No,” Powell said.

And with that, a two-hour House Financial Services Committee meeting that may have otherwise gone unnoticed grabbed worldwide attention.

Rep. Budd is a crypto champion and a member of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus. For context, it should be noted Rep. Budd was pressing Powell to clarify statements, made earlier this summer, with respect to the development of a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC) possibly undermining the need for private crypto.

While the American central banker is demonstrating quite the feathery touch when it comes to decentralized digital money, Chinese officials are moving starkly in the opposite direction, full-metal fists flying, as CryptoPotato noted, "prohibiting anyone from dealing with anything even remotely connected to crypto."