Bitcoin (BTC) is starting the new week at around $63,000, while bear-market history appears to be repeating with a weekly close below a key long-term trend line. With the market still trapped inside a tight range, traders are watching whether price can reclaim the levels it lost last week or whether the recent breakdown keeps momentum subdued.

Key points:

• Bitcoin has been trading in a range between $57,700 and $67,300, but last week’s close came with a drop below the key 200-week moving average at $64,216.
• Markets are pricing in near-70% odds of a hold by the Federal Reserve in September, as July meeting minutes are due this week.
• Japan’s Q2 GDP figures fell short of expectations at 1.1%, with analysis warning of “global tightening” that could affect Bitcoin and other risk assets.

Bitcoin posts a weekly close below the 200-week moving average

Bitcoin price action saw a modest rebound after Sunday’s weekly close, with local highs of $63,655 on Bitstamp.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Data from TradingView shows BTC/USD still moving sideways as the week begins, with price failing to break either side of a narrow trading range.

Analyst Benjamin Cowen highlighted that BTC/USD has moved back below its 200-week simple moving average (SMA). As Cointelegraph reported, this moving average was a defining feature of the 2022 bear market, when it turned into resistance in August before Bitcoin entered its long-term bottoming phase.

“What is interesting is how in both summer 2022/2026, Bitcoin capitulated below the 200W SMA, then bounced, then gave it up in mid-August,” he wrote in a post on X.

BTC/USD one-week chart with 200 SMA. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Trader and analyst Rekt Capital said price also failed to reach his own weekly-close target of $63,220, leaving the market positioned for further downside.

“A rejection from $63,220 would fully confirm the breakdown and send price lower within the current ~$58,000-$66,000 Range (blue-blue),” he told X followers alongside an explanatory chart.

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

Fed minutes due amid policy dissent

On Friday, preliminary Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data for the manufacturing and services sectors will be released. The data has recently been trending higher, diverging from relatively weak employment figures that have seen several months of downward revisions.

Last week’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) releases painted a softer-than-expected picture of US inflation trends, prompting a reassessment of future interest-rate moves by the Federal Reserve.

Latest data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool shows near-70% odds that the Fed will keep rates in the current 3.50%-3.75% range, compared with 42% a month ago.

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

“A pair of reports showing moderating inflation is helping keep the outlook for monetary policy from turning too hawkish,” trading resource Mosaic Asset Company said in an analysis published on Sunday.

Mosaic noted that while CPI came in at 3.4% year-on-year, it remained well above the Fed’s 2% target, a goal that chair Kevin Warsh continues to say will be reached.

On Wednesday, the Fed will publish minutes from its July meeting. Rate hikes were paused at that meeting amid the largest split among officials over the move since 1970, a detail that will matter for markets looking for clues on whether policymakers remain divided over the path of inflation and rates.

Last week, Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank president Beth Hammack, one of three dissenting voices calling for a 0.25% rate increase in July, questioned whether the public would tolerate it if the return to 2% inflation took several years.

“Maybe we’d get there, but if it takes another three to four years to get there, is that OK? Is that enough?” she said at an event with the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce in Kettering, Ohio, according to Bloomberg.

Japan’s GDP miss puts the Bank of Japan in focus

Japan’s central bank is on the radar for risk-asset traders this week after second-quarter GDP figures missed expectations by a wide margin. Quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year GDP increased 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively, below forecasts of 0.5% and 2.0%.

The release comes as markets look for the Bank of Japan (BoJ) to raise rates from current 1.0% levels in September, amid surging bond yields and continued weakness in the yen. Cointelegraph previously reported on a rare joint intervention in yen currency markets by Japan and the US after JPY/USD weakened to new 40-year lows.

BoJ interest-rate probabilities (screenshot). Source: RateProbability

The GDP data also included the first decline in private consumption in eight quarters, suggesting existing stimulus measures were failing to support consumer confidence.

“The boost to consumption from policy measures is already fading, and inflation will increase in H2 as firms will pass on increased costs, deteriorating consumers’ purchasing power,” Norihiro Yamaguchi, lead Japan economist at Oxford Economics, told CNBC.

The yen avoided major volatility after the GDP release, hovering near 159 per dollar on Monday.

USD/JPY four-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Following the data, Axel Adler Jr., a contributor to onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant, pointed to possible consequences for risk assets.

Japan’s 10-year bond yield reached 2.93% on Monday, its highest level since 1996.

“For now, this is not a signal to sell risk assets. But the market is approaching an important point: JGB > 3% + further BOJ rate hikes + a stronger yen + rising US Treasury yields,” he wrote in an X post.

“If these factors align, Japan’s rate normalization could turn into a global tightening of financial conditions and hit stocks and Bitcoin.”

Japan 10-year bond yields one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Bitcoin left out as consumer sentiment weakens while stocks rise

Rising stocks alongside record-low consumer sentiment are creating another warning sign for Bitcoin, which appears to be increasingly overlooked.

In the latest edition of its regular newsletter, The Week Onchain, crypto analytics platform Glassnode described a notable divergence between Bitcoin and equities in sentiment.

“Consumer Confidence remains among the weakest readings of the past decade even after two consecutive improvements, while the US Stock Market Index set a fresh all-time high on August 7 and holds just beneath it,” it said.

Softer US inflation readings helped push the S&P 500 to all-time highs of 7,816 on Thursday. At the same time, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey is expected to fall 7.6% in August.

“Weak sentiment next to record prices looks like a contradiction until the driver is named: households that expect living costs to rise and the economy to soften are moving out of cash and into assets. The equity market, carried above all by the AI trade, is where that capital lands,” Glassnode said.

US consumer sentiment data. Source: University of Michigan

Bitcoin remains absent from that capital rotation. Glassnode said one sign of a change would be a sustained rebound in institutional inflows to US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Last week, those ETFs recorded net outflows of $267.2 million, according to data from UK-based investment company Farside Investors. Only one of the five trading days ended with net inflows, totaling just $7.8 million.

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

Exchange BTC reserves rise as whale inflows gain attention

Bitcoin’s supply dynamics are another factor drawing attention from analysts, according to CryptoQuant.

Whales have begun to dominate exchange inflows, compounding a lack of retail interest and pushing exchange BTC reserves higher again. Binance’s whale ratio reached 0.71 on Aug. 10, the highest level since early March.

“Exchange deposits do not necessarily mean immediate selling, but they increase the amount of BTC available for trading or hedging,” CryptoQuant said.

Binance exchange whale ratio. Source: CryptoQuant

Binance’s BTC reserves totaled 674,332 BTC on Sunday, up 2.57% month-to-date and at their highest level since November 2025.

“The long-running trend of BTC leaving exchanges may therefore be weakening,” CryptoQuant added.

Binance BTC reserves. Source: CryptoQuant

As Cointelegraph reported, exchange activity has been driven by derivatives markets as BTC/USD has traded in a tight range since early June. On Binance, futures trading volume was eight times higher than spot volume in early August.