Bitcoin closed August with a gain of nearly 25%—its strongest August since 2017—and finished the month back above its 50-month moving average for the first time since last year's crypto winter began. On Myriad Markets, traders are pricing a 77% chance that BTC reaches $84,000 before it falls to $55,000. September, however, is historically Bitcoin's weakest month, and the daily chart already shows price stalling beneath a resistance wall that has held since late August.

On the first day of September, Bitcoin traded around $77,500, down roughly 1.3% on the day, after wrapping up one of its most powerful months of the cycle. The historic rally that shifted crypto markets from "fear" to "extreme greed" in record time appears to have cooled—raising the question of where Bitcoin's price goes from here.

The rally's origins

For context, the recent rally traces back to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's decision on August 19 to double the size of long-end bond buybacks, a liquidity move that pushed Treasury yields sharply lower and set off a short squeeze in crypto—traders who had bet against Bitcoin were forced to buy it back as prices rose, accelerating the move. Around the same time, the Securities and Exchange Commission offered a framework for crypto investment contracts, adding regulatory tailwind to the move.

The rally then cooled after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh used his first Jackson Hole address as chairman to warn that inflation numbers "are more concerning" than the labor market, reviving talk of a rate hike at the Fed's September 15-16 meeting. Bitcoin briefly topped $81,000 in the days after the buyback news before slipping back under $78,000. It closed August with a monthly gain of roughly 25%, recovering from a 21-month low near $59,300 reached in June.

On Myriad, a prediction market built by Decrypt's parent company Dastan, traders are betting heavily that the rally has more room to run. The line sits at 77% that Bitcoin hits $84,000 before dropping back to $55,000—a lopsided reading that reflects August's momentum more than what the charts currently show. Prediction markets like Myriad let users wager on discrete outcomes, so the 77% figure is a real-money probability gauge of crowd positioning, not a price forecast.

Bitcoin price: What the charts say

Bitcoin opened September exactly where August left off, at $78,571, before sliding to an intraday low of $77,440. That is a modest pullback, but it comes right beneath a resistance zone that has proven sticky near the $82,500 price line.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI), which measures whether an asset is overbought or oversold on a scale of 0 to 100, stands at 66.1 on the daily chart. That is bullish territory, though it is edging toward the 70 mark where traders typically expect profit-taking to begin.

The Average Directional Index (ADX), which measures trend strength regardless of direction, sits at a firm 43.7—well above the 25 threshold that confirms a genuine trend is in place. That is a much stronger reading than the choppy, directionless action a low ADX would indicate.

There is a wrinkle, however. The 50-day and 200-day exponential moving averages remain in a bearish crossover, with the 50-day below the 200-day. That is typically read as a longer-term warning sign even during a rally, because it means the longer-term trend structure has not fully turned bullish—the current price has simply gotten ahead of it. Still, the gap is narrowing, which could point toward a bullish crossover in the future.

Zooming out to the monthly chart reveals the more interesting story. Bitcoin spent essentially the entire second half of 2025 through July 2026 in a descending trajectory, trading below its 50-month moving average—the slow-moving line that smooths out four years of price action. This has happened only a few times before in Bitcoin's history: during the 2018-2019 bear market that followed the 2017 top, and again through 2022's collapse after the Terra/LUNA and FTX blowups. Both were full-blown crypto winters.

August's monthly candle—the biggest green bar on the chart—pushed Bitcoin's price back above that average, delivering the best-performing month since November 2024. That is a meaningful technical shift. Yet the monthly RSI stands at a neutral 50.6, and the monthly ADX at 23.7, just shy of the 25 mark that would confirm a real trend rather than a bounce. In other words, breaking above the average ended the winter signal, but it has not yet confirmed a new bull trend.

Macro backdrop and seasonal headwinds

The macro backdrop that drove August's rally has not gone away. Treasury's buyback program runs through the November 4 refunding quarter, spot Bitcoin ETFs have continued to pull in net inflows throughout the month, and the SEC's crypto rulemaking process is moving forward rather than stalling. ETF inflows matter here because those funds hold actual Bitcoin, so sustained buying translates into demand on the underlying asset rather than just derivatives positioning.

A reclaimed 50-month average, combined with a daily ADX confirming a genuine trend rather than noise, gives bulls a real structural argument: the winter signal that held for roughly 10 months has just broken, and trend-following capital tends to chase that kind of shift once it is confirmed on a higher timeframe.

Even so, September is working against the bulls before any new catalyst appears. Since 2013, September has been Bitcoin's weakest calendar month, and that seasonal drag is compounded this year by Warsh's hawkish Jackson Hole tone and a Fed meeting on September 15-16 where rate-hike odds have jumped. For readers watching what comes next, the Fed's September decision and whether Bitcoin can clear the $82,500 resistance zone are the near-term checkpoints that will test both the prediction market's optimism and the charts' caution.

Key levels to watch

Resistance: $81,455 to $82,538 (immediate confluence zone); $92,003 to $100,091 (monthly golden zone)

Support: $73,670 to $75,157 (daily golden zone); $68,858 (August swing low)

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.