News Block: Bitcoin Price Hits 8-Month High, Homes Just Got Harder to Afford, and CLARITY Act Fails

— The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in three years, pushing 30-year mortgage rates to nearly 7%, making homeownership dramatically more expensive for first-time buyers while locking existing homeowners in place.

— The CLARITY Act failed in the Senate despite months of negotiation, with disagreement centered on whether ethics rules should apply to the Trump family's crypto holdings and business interests.

— The SEC granted a five-year exemption allowing U.S. platforms to trade tokenized stocks without registering as exchanges, marking regulators' formal acceptance of blockchain-based financial infrastructure.

— Bitcoin rallied above $85,000 after being called a "dead cat bounce" by tech investor Jason Calacanis, who repeated previous bearish calls that proved wrong by over 20x since 2018.

— Understand the structural difference: tokenized stocks and digital dollars preserve the asset's existing rules and depreciation, whereas Bitcoin has a fixed supply that no authority can change, making it fundamentally different infrastructure.

— Review mortgage and housing decisions in light of rate regimes; the cost of capital has shifted permanently for new borrowers, widening wealth gaps between asset holders and those trying to enter markets.

— Historical pattern shows repeated "Bitcoin is dead" predictions have been consistently wrong—focus on long-term accumulation and ignore short-term sentiment cycles from commentators with past failed forecasts.