Bitcoin (BTC) begins the final week of August near its highest levels since mid-May, as its bear-market recovery reaches a critical point.

Key points:

• Bitcoin closed a weekly candle above its 50-week exponential moving average (EMA) for the first time since November 2025.
• After its strongest August gains in nearly a decade, BTC/USD has returned several investor cohorts to net profit, while new money has entered at $73,000.
• Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is in focus ahead of the Jackson Hole symposium.
• US PCE data is due on Wednesday as markets continue to digest last week’s US Treasury debt buyback.
• Capital has returned to exchange-traded products, with Bitcoin ETF net inflows reaching $1.9 billion last week.

Bitcoin closes above a key resistance line

Bitcoin reached $79,550 last week, its highest level since early May, after a five-day rally that delivered gains of as much as 27%. BTC/USD ended last week at $77,727 on Bitstamp, according to TradingView data. That close marked a reclaim of the 50-week exponential moving average (EMA), a major resistance trendline now sitting at $77,752.

Traders often focus on the 50-week EMA during Bitcoin bear markets because weekly closes above it can mark a shift in momentum, while repeated failures to hold it have historically left room for renewed downside. The last weekly candle to close above this level was in early November 2025. In past bear markets, Bitcoin has retested the 50-week EMA before ultimately capitulating to macro lows, which has left some market participants unconvinced by the latest move.

BTC/USD one-week chart with 50 EMA. Source: Cointelegraph/ TradingView

Before the weekly close, crypto trader and analyst Rekt Capital said that not only the 50-week EMA but the broader area around $80,000 remained resistance that bulls need to overcome, even though price has so far topped out below that level.

“Each Bear Market Relief Rally thus far would retrace sharply in the week following a strong breakout rally,” he wrote in ongoing X analysis.

“Next weeks will be crucial. But maybe even already next week we’ll know whether Bitcoin can sustain these highs or not.”

An accompanying chart later described by Rekt Capital as showing a series of macro lower highs suggested that the broader bear market structure may still be intact despite the recent strength.

BTC/USD one-week chart. Source: Rekt Capital on X.com

Earlier, Cointelegraph reported that some traders expect 2026 to unfold in a manner similar to previous bear markets, with 2022 offering the closest comparison in terms of timing.

“If history repeats, Bitcoin will try to get as close as possible to ~$93,000 in 2027. But first, Bitcoin needs to fully confirm its Bear Market bottom and fully confirm a break of the Macro Downtrend,” Rekt Capital added.

Bitcoin heads for its best August in nine years

Bitcoin consolidated over the weekend, hovering around $77,500 at the time of writing, while remaining up 22% month-to-date. That puts it on track for its best-performing August since 2017, according to CoinGlass data.

BTC/USD monthly returns (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass

The advance pushed the weekly candle back above several important price levels, including the aggregate cost basis for short-term holders (STHs) — wallets holding a UTXO for less than 155 days — at $68,700. CryptoQuant said this left STH net profitability at just above 11%.

“At the same time, Long-Term Holder profitability moved from approximately breakeven to +18.5%, while New Money profitability rose from -1.4% to +12.7%,” the analytics platform reported on Monday.

Looking at the cost basis of UTXOs across cohorts, CryptoQuant said “new money” now has a breakeven level at $73,000, which is above both the STH and long-term holder cost bases. That leaves less room for downside protection if BTC/USD reverses and searches for lower support.

“That makes the 68K-73K region the key area to watch. Holding above it would suggest that the profitability reset is becoming structurally durable. Losing it would quickly push a large portion of recent buyers back into loss,” it added.

Bitcoin UTXO distribution by cohort age (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant

Warsh takes center stage at Jackson Hole

Attention this week turns to the Federal Reserve and Chair Kevin Warsh as the annual Jackson Hole economic symposium begins.

The event will bring together central bankers from more than 70 countries and will feature Warsh’s first keynote speech as Fed chair, as well as his first public speaking appearance since the press conference following the July Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.

Warsh has kept a restrained profile on financial policy, especially on future interest-rate changes, a topic that remains highly sensitive for crypto and other risk assets. Recent inflation data has supported the case for easier policy ahead, but markets remain cautious amid the ongoing threat of oil-price spikes from the US-Iran war.

CME Group’s FedWatch Tool currently shows a 63.1% probability that rates will remain at the current 3.50%-3.75% range after the September FOMC meeting.

Fed target-rate probability comparison for September FOMC meeting (screenshot). Source: CME Group

Speaking to CNBC last week, Thierry Wizman, global foreign exchange and rates strategist at Macquarie Group, said Warsh must balance Treasury influence with his goal of reducing the Fed’s market involvement.

Wizman said that “were Warsh to signal that he would stay ‘dovish’ indefinitely, it could be self-defeating for him and the Treasury, since inflation breakevens would rise further, perhaps undoing the stability in the nominal long-term yields that [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent is trying to achieve.”

A Bank of America survey of fund managers, cited by Barchart and others, showed 72% odds that no rate hikes will be delivered before the US midterm elections in November. On policy, consensus has shifted toward a “no landing” scenario over the next 12 months, in which the economy avoids recession while growth and unemployment remain strong.

Treasury debt move revives yield curve control debate

Beyond geopolitics, last week’s move by the US Treasury to at least double the size of its debt buyback purchases to $4 billion per operation was the main market catalyst.

The announcement triggered a Bitcoin short squeeze that wiped out a record $3.1 billion in crypto short positions over two days.

The scale of the reaction led some observers to suggest that Bitcoin is again pricing in a shift in global liquidity conditions, as governments face rising costs to finance debt.

“The intervention ignited a move in assets sensitive to the outlook for liquidity, including gold and Bitcoin. That hints at market concerns over currency debasement should measures like quantitative easing make a return to contain interest rates,” trading resource Mosaic Asset Company wrote in the latest edition of its newsletter, The Market Mosaic.

Mosaic said the move was not merely a liquidity adjustment but a form of yield curve control (YCC), with short-term bonds issued to finance the additional buybacks. Crypto commentators have long argued that YCC is all but inevitable if governments are to avoid bankruptcy.

“YCC is the end game. When it is finally implicitly or explicitly declared, it’s game over for the value of the USD vs. gold and more importantly Bitcoin,” Arthur Hayes, former CEO of crypto exchange BitMEX, wrote in a 2022 blog post.

“YCC is how we get to $1 million Bitcoin and $10,000 to $20,000 gold.”

PCE inflation data is next

The July reading of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, due on Wednesday, is the next major macro release likely to influence markets. The PCE index is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, and its timing matters because it lands just before Jackson Hole rhetoric has a chance to shape expectations for the September policy meeting. In June, it recorded its first month-on-month decline since 2020.

Consensus expects a 0.1% monthly rise in the upcoming report, with the year-on-year increase easing to 3.6% from 3.7% in June.

PCE index one-month % change (screenshot). Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis

Bitcoin ETFs post strongest inflows in 10 months

Crypto fund flows have remained closely tied to price volatility, and last week’s inflows into US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) set records.

Data from UK-based investment company Farside Investors shows the ETF group took in $1.9 billion across the week’s five trading sessions, the strongest weekly total since October 2025, when Bitcoin reached its latest all-time high of $126,200.

Thursday was especially strong as BTC/USD extended gains beyond $70,000, with BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) attracting more than $500 million in net inflows.

“We saw net inflows on every trading day last week, which suggests renewed investor interest in Bitcoin,” Gracie Lin, chief executive officer of crypto exchange OKX SG, told Bloomberg.

“The question now is whether that momentum will hold. After such a strong move in Bitcoin, some profit-taking wouldn’t be surprising.”

US spot Bitcoin ETF netflows (screenshot). Source: Farside Investors

The figures stand in sharp contrast to activity two months earlier, when June saw more than $4.5 billion in unprecedented net outflows. By the end of last week, August inflows had reached $2.38 billion, a new year-to-date record.