Bitcoin Breaks Its August Curse as Big Money Returns
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| By Marija Matic |
Two weeks ago, the crypto market was scared.
Now, it's greedy.
The flip took eight days. Making this the wildest sentiment swing in a year. Not only that, it happened in August — a month that has historically seen corrections, not rallies.
And we could see it all happen in real time. On the Crypto Fear and Greed Index.1
This data — which measures on-chain sentiment — climbed from 31 (fear) to 74 (greed) in just eight days this August.
The last time sentiment turned this hard, this fast?
That was right before Bitcoin (BTC, “A-”) printed its all-time high on Oct. 6, 2025.
That move took nine days.
In other words, the market just repeated one of its most bullish setups, only quicker.
And the price backed it up. August has historically been a graveyard month for Bitcoin3, especially in down years within the 4-year cycle …
- In August 2014, BTC fell 17%:
- It fell 9% in 2018
- And 14% in 2022.
But this August has flipped the script. It’s about to close with about a 25% gain — landing as one of the strongest Augusts on record.
Think about that. This is historically a month traders usually brace for. But this year, it turned into a launchpad.
The one asterisk worth keeping in mind as we close out the summer: Green Augusts have historically been followed by softer Septembers.
Big Money Is Buying
Crypto investment funds pulled in $3.2 billion last week. Again, the last time we saw figures like this was last October.
But individual buyers made the point louder:
- Strategy (MSTR) scooped up 4,603 BTC for $369.7 million between Aug. 24 - 30 at an average price of $80,318.
This pushes its stack toward 845,000 coins. And with this latest batch bought above its prior cost basis of around $75,000, it reads as continued accumulation with conviction. - BitMine added 53,501 ETH in a single week, lifting its Ethereum (ETH, “B+”) holdings to 5.90 million tokens.
Bitcoin's Coinbase Premium also flipped green for the first time in over three months.4 A premium on Coinbase — the venue favored by U.S. institutions — usually means American funds are spot-buying again.
There's also a longer-term signal forming on the charts: a "golden cross."
That’s where Bitcoin's shorter-term trend line rises above its longer-term one. Every time this pattern has completed over the past few years, a further rally followed.
It hasn't been confirmed yet, but it's close.
Wall Street Now Trades on Crypto's Rails
This is the development that may outlast the current rally: Traditional finance is taking over Binance's futures market.5
According to K33 Research,6 perpetual futures tied to traditional assets — "TradFi perps" which cover tokenized stocks, ETFs, and commodities — now make up 36.72% of all perp trading on Binance.
That’s more than a third of the exchange's flow!
Most of the top perps on Binance are now TradFi contracts. Single stocks are the most actively traded. But semiconductor ETFs, South Korean index products and commodities like gold and Brent crude have also taken the spotlight to become some of the most actively traded instruments on the platform.
And over the past 30 days, these TradFi perps averaged double the volume traded on BTCUSDT, Binance's flagship Bitcoin contract.
The appeal is simple: A perpetual on a U.S. stock trades through the weekend and overnight. Exactly when the actual stock market is closed.
Crypto infrastructure is becoming more influential in serving markets that traditional brokers can't.
True, this means that Bitcoin's slice of the action is shrinking as a result. But this is a bullish case for the chains those RWAs are tokenized on.
Solana's Supply Squeeze
Solana (SOL, “B-”) has joined the “altcoins with a catalyst” list.
Its first round of on-chain governance just concluded, where the "Double Disinflation" proposal (SGP-0002) passed with 67% support,7 narrowly clearing the two-thirds threshold.
The proposal doubles the rate at which new SOL issuance slows down. It will cut roughly 18.9 million SOL from emissions over the next six years. That means we’ll hit Solana's terminal inflation rate in about 2.8 years instead of 5.7.
Simply put, expect less new supply of SOL sooner.
The bullish vote was noticed: A single whale bought $29.58 million of SOL on Binance three days ago.
The Macro Backdrop
Here’s the important part: This bullish push on-chain isn’t happening in a vacuum.
The liquidity picture is turning favorable.
In a recent interview, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes argued8 that the U.S. Treasury's plan to at least double its long-end bond buybacks amounts to a liquidity injection, with more money chasing scarce assets like Bitcoin.
His view is that even with inflation and growth data pointing toward rate hikes, the Fed is unlikely to raise.
Why?
Because the Treasury needs to keep markets liquid. If markets start pricing in that dynamic, he thinks Bitcoin could move quickly toward six figures and beyond.
That’s in part thanks to the regulatory picture. It’s begun to shift in a positive direction, as well …
- Binance's former CEO, CZ, called the UAE's framework the most progressive in crypto today, citing Abu Dhabi's global license for the exchange.
- Japan is moving to scrap tax rules that make yen stablecoins harder to use for payments.
- And at Jackson Hole, an ECB board member said central bank money must move onto blockchain infrastructure. That’s a nod to the same tokenized-asset trend already reshaping Binance's order books.
The Week Ahead
The week's main event will be Friday's Non-Farm Payrolls and unemployment print. The results from the ISM Services PMI and ADP employment reports will likely act as secondary movers.
We’ll have to wait to see what those say. But with oil trading above $90 amid continuing U.S.–Iran tensions, I expect we’ll see a fair bit of volatility.
Now, this is expected volatility. And it’s the exact market behavior that tempts people to wait for a perfect entry or clean retests.
But the most expensive mistake in investing is believing you can time the market flawlessly.
You wait, you miss the recovery, and you buy higher anyway.
I’m not saying the answer is to jump at the first sign of bullishness. The volatility isn't over, and investors still need to be careful.
But the signals converging here strongly suggest the cycle's low should be behind us.
Which means you should have your entry targets and accumulation ranges already set. This way, you remove the guesswork and emotion from your strategy.
Best,
Marija Matić
P.S. If you’re not sure the best way to structure your crypto strategy or how to find your entry and exit targets, you may want to let my colleague Juan Villaverde’s Crypto Timing Model do the hard work for you.
Using Juan’s cycles analysis, this tool helps him identify the best entry and exit ranges for crypto’s market leaders. It’s the same model that helped Juan accurately call the peaks and valleys of the past three long-term cycles, almost to the day!
You can click here to learn more about it.
1https://alternative.me/crypto/fear-and-greed-index/
2https://alternative.me/crypto/fear-and-greed-index/
3https://www.coinglass.com/today
4https://www.coinglass.com/pro/i/coinbase-bitcoin-premium-index
5https://x.com/VetleLunde/status/2087514534453870715
6https://cryptorank.io/news/feed/f75f0-tradfi-perps-overtake-bitcoin-binance-futures
7https://governance.solana.com/proposals
