Good morning everybody.
It’s Thursday, August 27th, 2026.
Bitcoin is still fighting with $80,000.
We’ve broken through it.
We’ve traded above it.
We’ve watched it fall back below it.
And we’re now sitting around $79,300.
So I’m going to condense the entire $80K argument into one sentence:
Bitcoin does not need to touch $80,000 again. It needs to turn $80,000 into the floor.
Until that happens, we haven’t really broken $80K.
$80K Needs to Become Support
Bitcoin traded above $80,000 again yesterday before selling off as Asian markets opened.
That’s exactly what we’ve been talking about.
People are taking profits.
There are investors who bought Bitcoin much lower and are sitting on enormous short-term gains. There are investors who bought higher and finally have a chance to get some of their money back.
So $80,000 isn’t the goal anymore.
We’ve already done $80K.
Now Bitcoin needs to move above it, pull back, and find buyers around that level.
That’s when resistance becomes support.
If we start consistently trading above $80K and using it as the floor, then the next stage of this rally becomes much more interesting.
Maybe We’re Getting a Shallower Bear Market
There is some good news in the fact that Bitcoin continues hanging around $80,000 instead of immediately collapsing.
It makes a shallower bear market increasingly plausible.
That doesn’t mean number can’t go down.
It absolutely can.
We could still move back into the $60Ks.
Maybe the $50Ks.
But the longer Bitcoin holds these higher levels, the harder it becomes to argue that we’re definitely going back into the mid-$40Ks or even high-$30Ks.
As Paul wrote in the comments, people forget that bear markets have rallies.
Exactly.
And historically, the four-year Bitcoin cycle hasn’t reached its normal bear-market bottom yet.
We’re still in August.
September hasn’t happened.
October hasn’t happened.
So I’m not ready to throw the four-year cycle out because Bitcoin had one enormous rally.
Could Bitcoin still move back into the $60Ks, fall into the $50Ks, and maybe briefly touch the $40Ks?
Absolutely.
Could some giant macro event send it even lower?
Absolutely.
But every day Bitcoin holds around $80K makes those deeper scenarios a little less likely.
Inflation Came in Hot, but Not THAT Hot
Inflation came in around 3.4%, above expectations of roughly 3.1%.
Everybody immediately started calling it hot.
Okay.
It’s hot.
But it’s not 5%.
It’s not some catastrophic inflation print that completely changes the economic picture.
Thirty basis points above expectations matters at the macro level, but I don’t personally think that’s enough to explain Bitcoin suddenly struggling at $80,000.
Profit taking and resistance remain much simpler explanations.
Bitcoin ETFs Keep Buying
The more important number to me is ETF demand.
Bitcoin ETFs recorded another approximately $232.2 million in inflows yesterday, marking the eighth consecutive day of positive flows.
BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for roughly $200.8 million, Fidelity’s FBTC added approximately $25.6 million, and Bitwise’s BITB brought in around $6 million.
That’s what I want to see.
Eight straight days.
Whatever is causing investors to rotate money back into Bitcoin ETFs, they’re continuing to buy.
That demand is one of the reasons Bitcoin can sit underneath $80K while investors take profits without completely falling apart.
If those flows continue, eventually the sell wall gets absorbed.
The Short Squeeze Got Us Here
We also can’t forget what helped create this move.
Short sellers got annihilated.
Forced liquidations cleared out a significant amount of bearish positioning and accelerated Bitcoin’s move toward $80,000.
But that forced buying doesn’t continue forever.
Eventually the shorts are gone.
Then Bitcoin has to stand on actual demand.
That’s where ETF inflows become much more important.
The squeeze helped get us here.
ETF buyers may determine whether we stay here.
Treasury Liquidity Is Still Supporting Bitcoin
The other major piece remains Treasury liquidity and the weaker dollar.
We’ve talked about this repeatedly over the past week.
Changes in Treasury-market liquidity helped revive the debasement trade.
Investors look at government debt, currency pressure, Treasury buybacks and the broader fiscal situation and decide they want scarce assets.
Gold.
Bitcoin.
That’s still one of the strongest macro explanations for why Bitcoin moved in the first place.
Nvidia Didn’t Blow Everything Up
Nvidia reported earnings, and the results were good enough that we didn’t get some giant AI-driven market selloff.
That’s important for Bitcoin.
Crypto and AI aren’t the same trade, but there is overlap in the risk appetite surrounding them.
Bitcoin miners are moving into AI infrastructure.
Publicly traded crypto companies trade alongside other technology and high-growth assets.
If Nvidia had completely shit the bed, investors could have started pulling money from AI stocks, miners, Coinbase, and other adjacent companies.
That could have spilled into Bitcoin.
Instead, Nvidia projected strong continued growth, including roughly 70% revenue growth for the fiscal year ending January 2028, according to the figures discussed in today’s show.
So at least that particular grenade didn’t go off.
Kevin Warsh Is the Bigger Story Now
Tomorrow’s speech at Jackson Hole from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh could be considerably more important.
There are basically two major monetary-policy tools we’re watching.
Interest rates and the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.
Lower rates are generally supportive of Bitcoin and other risk assets.
Higher rates generally aren’t.
But Warsh has historically been much more interested in reducing the size of the Fed’s balance sheet.
And that’s where things get complicated.
A shrinking balance sheet can remove liquidity from the financial system.
Bitcoin likes liquidity.
So you could theoretically have a Fed that’s friendlier toward lower rates while simultaneously becoming more aggressive about reducing its balance sheet.
Those two forces don’t necessarily point in the same direction for Bitcoin.
Don’t Expect Warsh to Tell Us Exactly What He’s Doing
We’re used to Jerome Powell.
Powell would speak.
Markets would parse the language.
The Fed would signal what it was considering.
Traders would start pricing it in.
Then eventually the Fed would do the thing everybody had spent weeks talking about.
I’m not convinced Warsh is going to operate the same way.
I don’t expect him to walk into Jackson Hole tomorrow and say:
“Here’s exactly what we’re doing with rates and here’s exactly what we’re doing with the balance sheet.”
I think we’re more likely to get philosophy.
Strategy.
His view of what the Federal Reserve should be.
Then every economist and trader on Earth will spend the rest of the day analyzing every word trying to figure out what the hell he actually meant.
That’s what I’m watching tomorrow.
Warsh Doesn’t View Bitcoin as the Enemy
Here’s the interesting part for crypto.
Warsh has previously argued that Bitcoin doesn’t make him nervous.
He has described Bitcoin as something that can impose market discipline on policymakers and potentially provide a signal when monetary authorities are getting policy wrong.
He isn’t arguing Bitcoin should replace the dollar.
He also distinguishes Bitcoin and legitimate blockchain innovation from the enormous pile of speculative tokens whose valuations he questions.
Basically:
Bitcoin?
Interesting.
Blockchain?
Useful.
The other 40,000 pieces of shit?
Maybe not.
Fair enough.
What Does Bitcoin as a “Signal” Actually Mean?
This is the part I’m trying to understand.
My interpretation is that when people aggressively rotate money into Bitcoin, gold, and other scarce assets, they’re telling policymakers something.
They’re saying:
“I don’t trust what you’re doing with money.”
They’re moving away from the normal economy and toward assets they believe can protect them from monetary policy.
If that’s what Warsh means by Bitcoin acting as a signal, then Bitcoin mooning isn’t necessarily something he wants.
It’s evidence that markets may be questioning monetary credibility.
So I don’t think Warsh is necessarily bullish for Bitcoin.
He’s bullish in the sense that he doesn’t appear to view Bitcoin as something the Fed needs to attack.
That’s good.
But I don’t think the Fed chair wants to see people abandoning dollars and aggressively piling into Bitcoin either.
Bitcoin isn’t the Fed’s enemy.
It isn’t the Fed’s savior.
It’s potentially the warning light on the dashboard.
Crypto Prices
Bitcoin: $79,330, up approximately 1.7%
Ethereum: $2,500, up approximately 2.1%
Tether: #3
BNB: $707, up approximately 1.1%
XRP: $1.42, up approximately 2.3%
USDC: #6
Solana: $104, up approximately 8%
TRON: $0.337
Hyperliquid: $82.51
Dogecoin: $0.087, up approximately 2.5%
Total Crypto Market Cap: $2.67 trillion, up approximately 1.6%
Fear & Greed Index: Extreme Greed
My Take
Bitcoin is still doing exactly what we should expect around $80,000.
The important question isn’t whether we touch it tomorrow.
It’s whether $80K eventually becomes support.
The good news is ETF buyers keep showing up.
Treasury liquidity remains supportive.
Nvidia didn’t trigger an AI-market selloff.
And Bitcoin continues holding near the top of this rally rather than immediately collapsing.
The uncertainty is the Fed.
Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech could give us the first real indication of how he thinks about rates, the balance sheet and liquidity under his leadership.
And liquidity is ultimately what I’m watching.
Bitcoin doesn’t need another headline.
It needs buyers.
Turn $80K into the floor.
Then we can start talking seriously about $90K.
Happy HODLing, Everyone.