Bitcoin’s summer tailwinds

In this patch of your weekly Dispatch:

• ETH imitates BTC
• CPI to guide the Fed
• BTC sellers diminish?

Market cast

BTC: Still in range, but momentum tilts bullish

Bitcoin's weekly chart remains range-bound, with price repeatedly testing the 200-period SMA, which continues to hold as strong dynamic support. The RSI, a momentum oscillator, sits in neutral territory, while the Stochastic, another momentum oscillator, is approaching oversold levels. The MACD, a trend and momentum indicator, keeps its histogram in positive territory and rising — a mildly constructive sign even as the broader range stays intact.

The daily chart tells a quieter story. There's no strong trend in play: the RSI and Stochastic are both neutral without generating a clear signal, and the MACD histogram hovers near the zero line. The ADX, which measures trend strength, reads very low, confirming the absence of any decisive directional move.

Key levels to watch: On the downside, support sits around $62,000, with a deeper zone near $60,000; the weekly 200-period SMA offers additional dynamic support. To the upside, resistance comes in around $65,000, followed by $67,000.

The big idea

Bitcoin: Locating the price floor

Dispatch editors have watched Bitcoin try to recover more than once already this year, only to see the brief upticks undone by some counter-force — geopolitics, macro, or plain bearish sentiment retaking control. This time, a few more reasons for optimism are lining up. Bitcoin is holding above $65,000, up roughly 3–3.7% on the week and clawing back from an early-August low near $62,000, even with a fresh wave of Coldcard wallet exploits still rattling the network. While nothing is certain, here's what we're watching this week.

ETFs turn the corner: Spot Bitcoin ETFs took in about $853.5 million last week, their strongest week since April, with inflows across all five sessions and BlackRock's IBIT alone accounting for more than 80% of the Bitcoin total. Ether ETFs matched the mood, pulling in $244.9 million for a fifth straight positive week. Combined, the two categories absorbed $1.1 billion — the best week for either since April.

That marks a clear reversal from the outflows that dogged the category earlier this year, and the momentum built fast — cumulative inflows for the week had already crossed the half-billion-dollar mark by Wednesday. Price hasn't fully caught up yet, which is exactly the setup — if this week's flows follow through, price catching up to the demand is the logical next leg.

Macro middle ground: The macro backdrop shifted Friday, when July payrolls fell by 23,000 against forecasts for an 80,000 gain, with June's print revised down too. Traders read it as taking a September Fed hike off the table: odds had been as high as 100% heading into the July 29 meeting, where the Fed held rates at 3.5%–3.75% but saw three officials dissent in favor of going higher. Those odds had already slipped to about 60% on soft job-openings data before Friday's miss pushed them lower still.

That's the more accurate framing for this tailwind: a weak jobs report doesn't push the Fed toward cutting, it constrains the hawks still pushing for a hike. Under Chair Kevin Warsh, the committee's focus has stayed almost entirely on inflation, and a single soft print may not be enough to change that.

A defining moment comes again Wednesday, when July CPI lands at 8:30 a.m. ET. A reading in line with expectations or cooler keeps the hike case closed for now — the next data point in what's shaping up as a favorable macro window for Bitcoin.

Whales keep buying the dip: Underneath the flows, CryptoQuant data shows Bitcoin whale balances (excluding exchanges and miners) climbing to about 3.06 million BTC, up from a December 2025 low near 2.87 million and still below the 2025 peak of 3.23 million — room to keep building. Separately, roughly 155,000 BTC has accumulated between $62,000 and $65,000, now Bitcoin's largest cost-basis cluster, evidence that buyers are absorbing supply even as 54.6% of coins sit at breakeven — a condition CryptoQuant says has historically marked cycle bottoms rather than breakdowns. One caveat is worth keeping in the piece: this pattern is consistent with the final stage of a bear market, not proof a bottom is confirmed. Valuation, the firm says, still leaves room for one more leg lower before the floor is in.

Taken together: ETF demand is back, the labor market is buying Bitcoin time on rate hikes, and large holders are accumulating into weakness. None of it is decisive on its own, and Wednesday's CPI print is the hinge. But the ingredients for a durable low — and the start of a recovery — are visibly assembling.

Ethereum

ETH mirrors BTC’s recovery, whales included

Ether is tracking Bitcoin's bounce, trading near $1,910–$1,925 and up over 3% on the week. Spot ETH ETFs pulled in $244.9 million last week, their best week since April and a fifth straight positive week, with Thursday's $92.2 million the largest single-day haul. Whale wallets holding 10,000–100,000 ETH climbed to a record 19.6 million ETH, and wallets above 100,000 ETH have added roughly 1.8 million ETH since mid-2025 — even as smaller retail wallets have been net sellers. The funds are still about $711 million underwater on a mark-to-market basis, though that gap has narrowed from roughly $2 billion in mid-June.

Macroeconomic roundup

Inflation takes over as crypto's next catalyst

Attention shifts to inflation this week after Friday's jobs shock flipped the Fed narrative — the same shift that's been lifting crypto. The Fed held rates at 3.5%–3.75% on July 29 citing solid activity, but this week's data could either reinforce the case for caution or force officials to rethink it entirely:

July CPI (Aug 12): Consensus expects headline up 0.2%, core up 0.3% — a cooler print keeps the dovish setup crypto's been riding intact.

July PPI & Weekly Jobless Claims (Aug 13): A pipeline-inflation read plus a fresher labor pulse, both feeding the same rate-path calculus crypto is watching.

July Retail Sales (Aug 14): Tests whether spending holds up as hiring cools. June rose 6.7% y/y; a soft print would keep risk appetite, crypto included, supported.

The week's most interesting data story

The last sellers are almost gone

Sellers look exhausted. Glassnode's Seller Exhaustion Constant — the share of supply in profit multiplied by realized volatility, has fallen steadily since December, from above 0.04 to about 0.013 today, its lowest reading of this cycle and closing in fast on the roughly 0.010 floor hit at the last three bear-market bottoms, in 2015, 2018, and 2022. It got there without the usual drama: no capitulation flush, no volatility spike, just months of quiet drift wearing down the sellers still willing to part with coins — arguably the healthiest version of exhaustion there is.

The numbers

The week’s most interesting numbers

$1.2 billion — Bitcoin whale wallets have been buying since July 29, even as prices stayed range-bound.

3 for 3 — Bitcoin, Ether, and XRP whales are all accumulating at once, a pattern CryptoQuant ties to the bear market's final stage.

7 votes — What Republicans need from Democrats to clear the CLARITY Act's 60-vote threshold, now locked to a September 15 Senate vote.

$55 billion — Strategy's bitcoin stack, with Michael Saylor's weekend "Doing Business" post reviving bets that its buying pause is about to end.

Hot topic

What the community is discussing

Would this open the door for an year-end BTC rally?

A great checklist for Bitcoin’s next rally.

It is telling if professional traders are optimistic for BTC.

Dispatch is a weekly publication by Nexo, designed to help you navigate and take action in the evolving world of digital assets. To share your Dispatch suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].