This Sunday/Monday crypto kickoff walks through the data points driving market structure, flows, and positioning this week, blended with the macro backdrop and technicals that could shift the narrative in the days ahead. It's a short-term-focused read, grounded in data, interpreted through our lens, and built to prepare you for the week ahead.

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10x Weekly Crypto Kickoff – Bitcoin's Bull Market Is Officially Here.

We have consistently pointed out that Bitcoin would most likely confirm its cycle low in either August or September, with August looking increasingly likely. Still, $63,000 was a binary level, as the distribution price had moved there, meaning a rally of just 2-3% above that level would suddenly awaken the animal spirits.

Many Bitcoin buyers would have flipped back into profit above that level ($65,000) and likely increased their leverage, pushing Bitcoin higher still. The resulting delta increase from options, with a large amount of calls sitting at the $70,000 strike level, could provide a further push, which would in turn lift funding rates (ENA token the key beneficiary) and attract more ETF inflows. We explained this dynamic in a CoinDesk interview (here) last week, conducted when Bitcoin was still trading at $63,000.

Crypto Market Cap (LHS, $trn) vs. Trading Volumes (RHS, $bn)

Our preferred way to express this potential cycle bottom, now confirmed, was to buy upside calls (here, here), in Bitcoin, with the $70,000 August 28, 2026 calls rising from $300 to $7,600. Our (trading signals) altcoin model portfolio has gained +39% over the last five months, outperforming Bitcoin's 9% and delivering 30% alpha. Meanwhile, our crypto equity portfolio, which we suggested less than two weeks ago, is up 14.5% (here), notably Circle, which we suggested buying post-earnings at the $61 dip, and which is now up 44%.

It's a fast market that was simply waiting to move higher. Even if Bitcoin had traded below $63,000, we thought any dip would be shallow but short-lived. That's why we kept suggesting investors allocate into a longer-term portfolio rather than wait for a potential October cycle low, as some have been suggesting. The technical cycle analysis from weekly and monthly charts pointed in this direction (here), with the setup resembling October 2022, when we also called the bottom, another contrarian call at the time.

Bitcoin (LHS) vs. our trend model

Several bullish catalysts had an outsized impact on crypto prices that we don't want to brush over. But more than that, certain trends, such as the rally in gold prices (see 100% hit ratio for gold signal), reached a tipping point, where ‘symbolic’ announcements, like the Treasury shifting some longer-dated bonds into shorter-dated ones and increasing the size from $2bn to $4bn, created an outsized 'QE is back' through some form of operation twist vibe.

This has been part of the Treasury Secretary's already-growing intervention to stop the rise in US long-term yields, following his earlier intervention in the Japanese yen. With less incentive to keep Japanese pension and insurance money in the US bond market, Japan could, as China has already done, unwind part of its $1.1 trillion US bond portfolio. These two interventions are now a trend, even as Fed Chair Warsh has claimed he'll let market forces determine the appropriate yield level. Warsh speaks at Jackson Hole on Friday, August 28, 2026, at 10 am ET.

Those macro forces are bullish for Bitcoin. Trump has claimed the US is still working on a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, though nothing is imminent. Meanwhile, the odds of the Clarity Act passing and becoming law in 2026 are still only around 24%, but the market has moved sharply whenever Trump has held closed-door meetings with crypto executives and shared potentially important news. In July 2024, Trump's closed-door meetings with crypto executives triggered a huge accumulation trend among whale wallets, with more than 1.2 million BTC accumulated over the following months. The Senate will take up the Clarity Act vote on September 15, 2026.

But much more is happening behind the scenes: important regulatory changes, key updates on flows and positioning, and how we'd trade the latest move, including what traders should be doing now and how they should be positioned. We explain it all below.

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