Is the bull case for bitcoin actually a pullback?

Bitcoin neared $80,000 then slipped back — and analysts say the pullback is the real test. Solana validators are voting on a burn that could remove $800K of SOL daily. And ether's golden cross says the ETH/BTC run may not be done. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Monday, August 24, 2026 Bitcoin nears $80,000, but analysts say the next pullback will be key Bitcoin came close to $80,000 before slipping back toward $79,000, and analysts broadly agree on what they want to see next: a pause. Chris Sullivan of Hyperion Decimus, Ryan Lee of Bitget Research, and Joel Kruger of LMAX Group all see the recent move as a sign that bitcoin's outlook has improved — but none expects prices to simply climb higher from here. Lee sees a drop toward $75,000–$76,000 as normal after a rally this fast; Sullivan is watching a lower floor of $67,000–$70,000 if the pullback becomes deeper; Kruger thinks some consolidation would be healthy before $83,000 becomes the next major target. The underlying concern is that last week's $3 billion short squeeze did much of the heavy lifting, and sustained spot buying needs to follow for the move to hold. For now, $80,000 remains the immediate hurdle. Read live updates → CoinDesk · Reader Survey What best describes your role?  Individual investor  Institutional investor or asset manager  Developer or builder  Financial advisor or wealth manager Tech New Solana vote could ramp daily SOL burns to $800,000 and slow new token creation Solana validators are voting through Thursday on three proposals, two of which would meaningfully shrink SOL's circulating supply. SGP-0002 doubles the pace of inflation reduction from 15% to 30% annually. SGP-0003 splits transaction fees — a fixed portion to block producers, a compute-scaled portion permanently burned — lifting daily burns from roughly 650 SOL to between 7,500 and 9,000 SOL, worth up to $800,000 at current prices. A third proposal, SGP-0001, would ratify the Solana Constitution and formally establish the very voting system being used to decide all three — meaning the governance rules are being ratified after the votes they govern are already underway. SOL is up 28% on the week above $96. Read more → Markets Ether is crushing bitcoin, and the 'golden cross' says it may not be done yet The ETH/BTC ratio has rallied 25% since its June 6 low and just printed a golden cross — the 50-day moving average crossing above the 200-day — a pattern technicians read as a potential signal that the outperformance has room to run. The signal has a mixed record on this specific pair: a July 2025 golden cross delivered a 36% gain before reversing hard, while the February 2021 cross preceded a 93% rally. The May and August 2022 crosses were bull traps that failed almost immediately. As a thermometer rather than a forecast, the golden cross tells you the temperature of the current trend — it doesn't guarantee tomorrow's weather. Read more → Know someone who should be reading this? Share this newsletter See all of CoinDesk’s newsletters    CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York,NY,10011,USA, Unsubscribe Manage Preferences   Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.

Bitcoin's best week in years; what drove it and what's next

Governments are engineering a new playbook to manage debt. Bitcoin bulls have a name for it. And crypto just had its second-best week since 2021. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ SPONSORED BY Monday, August 24, 2026   Bitcoin is consolidating near $78,000 after its second-best weekly performance since early 2021 — a 23.6% surge triggered by the Treasury’s bond buyback expansion, a collapsing dollar and $2.62 billion of ETF inflows, the most since last October. The macro narrative has a new name: “financial repression,” the old policy playbook that governments use when their debt grows too large to manage through free markets. Keep interest rates artificially below inflation, force banks to buy government bonds, and savers are quietly wiped out over time. Bitcoin bulls — and now Ray Dalio — argue that in that environment, scarce assets that live outside the traditional system become essential. Gold is already above $4,600. The week ahead will test how much of that thesis survives contact with Jackson Hole, where Fed Chair Kevin Warsh speaks for the first time in that role. Core PCE data also drops this week. Stay alert. Read today’s full report → Market snapshot As of 8am EST Asset Price 24h BTC $77,711 +0.55% ETH $2,490 −0.40% SOL $88.60 −1.20% XRP $1.16 −2.30% Prices approximate. Visit coindesk.com/price for live data. A message from RealFi Most stablecoins leave capital sitting still. RealFi is different. It connects on-chain capital to real-world markets like US Treasuries, money market funds, and private credit. Real transparency. Real impact. RealFi. RealFi is launching August 2026. Join the Testnet now at realfi.co Find out more CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets. L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal. What matters today Markets   Story 1 of 3 Financial repression: The new buzzword driving the bitcoin price higher. Bitcoin is being bid up on a macro thesis that goes well beyond short-term price action — and it has a name that is spreading fast on financial social media: “financial repression.” The term describes what heavily indebted governments do when their debt grows too large to manage through free markets and default is politically unacceptable. Rather than cutting spending or raising taxes, they engineer an environment where interest rates are kept artificially below inflation, eroding the real value of cash and bonds over time. Savers lose wealth silently; the government gains breathing room. Two developments this month illustrate the playbook in action. In Europe, a new EU rule coming into force on January 11, 2027 will bar banks based outside the bloc from providing deposit-taking services to EU residents without a licensed branch inside the EU — a form of capital control that traps savings within the system. In the United States, the Treasury’s $4 billion bond buyback program — which doubled in scale last week — has been labeled financial repression by analysts at both Deutsche Bank and Citi, as it is designed to keep long-end yields below where free markets would set them. For bitcoin and gold, financial repression is structurally bullish: it forces savers to seek assets that preserve purchasing power outside the banking system. Ray Dalio said Monday that investors should own “a bit of bitcoin” as U.S. debt risks rise — a significant statement from the founder of Bridgewater, who spent years dismissing the asset. The bitcoin–Nasdaq divergence that began last week has also attracted attention: BTC has climbed toward $80,000 even as Nasdaq futures declined, reviving debate about whether bitcoin is finally developing into a genuine macro hedge rather than simply a high-beta tech surrogate. The week’s key catalysts are Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech and the core PCE inflation release. A dovish Warsh — or a softer-than-expected PCE — could extend the rally; a hawkish surprise could interrupt it. Read more → Markets   Story 2 of 3 Crypto roars back as bitcoin posts its second-best week since early 2021. Bitcoin gained 23.6% last week, surging from around $62,000 to as high as $79,500 before settling near $77,000 — its second-best weekly performance since February 2021, exceeded only by the relief rally that followed the Silicon Valley Bank crisis in March 2023. Ether did even better, climbing 31.3% from below $1,900 to above $2,520. The trigger was structural rather than crypto-specific: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an expansion of long-dated bond buybacks, which pushed yields and the dollar lower and created conditions for the breakout that a months-long consolidation had primed. The Dollar Index has now fallen to 98.9, below its 200-day moving average of 99.1 for the first time this year. Gold climbed above $4,600, gaining 15% over the past month. Spot crypto ETFs captured their strongest weekly inflows since October 2025: bitcoin ETFs drew $1.92 billion — their best week since bitcoin was near its all-time high above $126,000 — while ether ETFs added $697 million, their best week since early October. Total crypto ETF inflows reached $2.62 billion. Both BTC and ETH moved above their 200-day simple moving averages for the first time since early in the year, a technical milestone that signals improving long-term trend. Shorter-term moving averages are also beginning to turn upward, raising the prospect of a golden cross — the pattern where the 50-day average crosses above the 200-day, historically associated with sustained momentum. The debasement trade narrative — buying scarce assets to protect against fiat erosion — has returned in force, and for the first time in months bitcoin and gold are moving in tandem rather than diverging. Today, altcoins are consolidating and pulling back modestly from the week’s highs as the market digests the move and awaits its next catalyst. Read more → Finance   Story 3 of 3 Gemini strikes Apex deal to widen prediction markets reach. Gemini, the crypto platform founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, has signed a letter of intent with Apex Fintech Solutions to distribute regulated crypto prediction-market contracts through Apex’s brokerage network. Under the deal, Gemini Titan — the CFTC-licensed subsidiary that received its Designated Contract Market license in December 2025 — would become the exclusive regulated venue for crypto event contracts offered through Apex’s futures commission merchant to its brokerage customers. A futures commission merchant is a regulated firm that handles customer orders and funds for trading futures and derivatives; by routing through Apex’s FCM, retail brokerages gain access to Gemini’s prediction market infrastructure without having to build their own exchange connections. Gemini would handle both execution and clearing — the latter through another subsidiary, Gemini Olympus, which received its Derivatives Clearing Organization license from the CFTC in April. That dual-license structure — exchange plus clearing, both CFTC-regulated — gives Gemini infrastructure that competitors Kalshi and Polymarket do not yet fully match for institutional-grade brokerage distribution. The prediction market industry has grown at a pace that surprised even its optimists: monthly trading volume across leading platforms reached $24 billion by April, up from less than $5 billion in September 2025, according to Pew Research Center data. Sports, politics and cryptocurrency prices are the biggest categories. The deal builds on an existing Gemini-Apex relationship: Gemini launched commission-free stock trading for U.S. customers in July with Apex Clearing Corporation acting as custodian and clearing broker. CEO Tyler Winklevoss framed the direction plainly: “We believe that predictions are the future of markets.” In related news, Ethereum lending protocol Term Finance lost $8.5 million after an attacker accumulated enough governance tokens to pass a malicious proposal — a reminder that on-chain governance remains a persistent attack surface even as the broader market rallies. Read more → CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets. L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal. Crypto Daybook Americas: A newsletter from CoinDesk Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here.  Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.  CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011, USA Unsubscribe Manage preferences