Is the crypto bull market back? The evidence for and against

Bitcoin (BTC) gained about 8% on Wednesday 19 August. It started the day near $64,100 and reached roughly $69,500, the highest level since early June and the biggest one-day move since March. Ethereum (ETH) did even better in percentage terms, rising from around $1,900 to back above $2,000 on the day.

August is now on track to be Bitcoin’s first positive month since 2021. Something has clearly changed. Whether it has changed enough is the question.

The move didn’t come from crypto

It came from the US Treasury. It said it would double how much it spends buying back its own long-term government bonds, the ones maturing in 10 to 30 years, lifting the limit from $2bn to at least $4bn per operation from 9 September, running to early November.

Buying bonds pushes their prices up and their yields down, and the promise of more buying was enough on its own. The 30-year yield fell around 10 basis points, though at 5.19% it remains near its highest in 19 years. The US Dollar Index (DXY) dropped to a three-month low.

That looks like a bigger reaction than the news deserved. It was a technical adjustment, not a change in interest rates. When a market moves this hard on small news, it usually means traders were already thinking something and this gave them a reason to act on it.

You can see what they were thinking by looking at what else went up. Gold (XAU) rose 4.35% that day, its best in six months. Over August so far, as of Wednesday’s close, gold leads every major market at 10.7%, silver is second at 9.3%, and Bitcoin is third at 9.1%. Shares are nowhere near the top of that list.

That order matters. If this were a story about growth and optimism, shares would be near the top. Instead the winners were the assets people buy when they’re worried about the value of money itself. Bitcoin appears to have been bought as one of those, rather than as a risky bet.

There was more evidence a few hours later. The Federal Reserve released the minutes from its July meeting, and they showed officials leaning towards higher rates. Normally that would lift the dollar and hurt gold. Almost nothing happened.

Some of the move was just traders being forced out

Around $1.9bn of positions were closed out across exchanges in 24 hours, most of them bets that prices would fall. When prices rise instead, those traders have to buy back in, which pushes prices up further. A large part of that happened in a single burst.

At the same time, spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) took in $517m, their biggest day since 4 May.

The forced buying tells us where traders were positioned last week. It tells us little about who wants to buy next week, and it can’t happen again at that size until those bets are rebuilt. Take that part out and this looks like a good day rather than an 8% one.

What price says

At moments like this it would be useful to ask the best analyst in the world. Luckily, we have access to that analyst, and its name is price.

The weekly chart is where this is clearest. Through the second half of the bear market, price kept making lower lows while the Relative Strength Index (RSI), which measures momentum, was making higher lows. That gap is called a bullish divergence, and it means selling was losing force even while price kept falling. It was a warning that the downtrend was tiring, well before this week.

Bitcoin weekly chart, 20 August 2026. Source: TradingView

This week price broke above two things at once: the descending trend line that had capped rallies through the bear market, and the 20-week exponential moving average. At the time of writing Bitcoin trades near 71,771, and the current weekly candle is one of the strongest of the entire bear market.

Below price, the 200-week simple moving average sits close to where this move started. That’s the long-term average traders watch for cycle lows, and price bouncing off it is worth noting.

Two paths would take this further. Either Bitcoin holds the 70,000 region and pushes higher from here, or it pulls back to 66,000, sets a higher low, and moves up from there. Either could potentially give us a break in structure, and it would be the first proper one since the bear market started.

The real test sits higher, around 85,000. That’s where the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement sits, and it may act as strong resistance. Between here and there is the 50-week exponential moving average near 77,000, close to the 50% retracement.

Reclaiming 85,000 could open the door to a longer bull market. Everything below that is potential repair work.

So is it back?

Not yet. One strong day, a macro story that makes sense, and improving momentum underneath. That’s a case, not a confirmation.

Confirmation could look like Bitcoin defending its breakout levels on the way down rather than just clearing them on the way up, the dollar continuing to weaken, and ETF money arriving across several days instead of one. It’s also worth remembering the buyback increase expires in early November, so its effect on yields has a deadline attached.

Worth noting September has usually been Bitcoin’s weakest month, averaging a decline of roughly 3% to 4%. A new trend starting in late August meets that immediately.

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