Hi everyone – welcome back to Evolve’s Bitcoin Monthly newsletter. We hope our views on Bitcoin adoption and market conditions prove useful for investors considering Bitcoin as an investment, or for those managing an existing Bitcoin position.
Bitcoin entered the month near $63,000 and spent the first two and a half weeks pinned in the same joyless range, between roughly $62,000 and $66,000, that defined the summer.¹ Then, in the span of about ten days, it rallied to above $81,000 before settling to close near $78,000 – a gain of roughly 24.95% per CoinGlass monthly-return data, its best calendar month since November 2024 and its first green August since 2021.²,³ A market that had spent five months being told nothing was coming to save it suddenly had three somethings arrive at once.
None of the three was a mystery guest. A liquidity signal from the fiscal authority, a return of regulated spot demand, and evidence that the sellers were exhausted – these are the conditions that have historically ended Bitcoin winters, and all three showed up inside the same three-week window. We will take them in order.
The Debasement Trade Returns
The story starts in the bond market. On August 18, the 30-year Treasury yield touched 5.33% – its highest level since 2007.⁴ The next day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that Treasury would at least double its buybacks of long-dated paper, from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation.⁴ Strip away the plumbing and the message was simple: when long-term borrowing costs threaten to become a fiscal problem, the official sector will step in and buy duration. Not a surplus. Not a spending cut. A bigger official bid for the long end – an operation that looks a great deal like yield-curve control without the name.
Markets translated instantly. The dollar weakened, and gold and Bitcoin rallied together. Bitcoin blasted through $67,000 – the level short-sellers had defended for weeks – on its way toward $80,000, with a record $1.37 billion of Bitcoin shorts liquidated on August 19 alone, nearly double the previous daily high of $757 million from July 2021, according to K33 Research data cited by The Block.⁵,⁶ Within a week the move had stretched to 23%.⁶ Just as notable was what rallied alongside it. Gold, as ever, is a companion in this trade, not a competitor.
Washington’s Busiest Week
The same week delivered the year’s most substantive regulatory progress. On August 18, the SEC proposed Regulation Crypto Assets – a tailored securities offering regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets, with a startup exemption allowing offerings of up to $5 million over a four-year period and a fundraising exemption allowing offerings of up to $75 million during each 12-month period, subject to disclosure requirements.⁷ On August 19, President Trump hosted roughly two dozen crypto and traditional-finance executives at the White House – Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong among them, with the SEC and CFTC chairs in the room – and pressed the Senate to pass the CLARITY Act.8 That bill, which we have carried as an open file since spring, finally has a date attached: a cloture vote happening mid-September 2026.⁸
We have been burned twice on CLARITY timelines, so we will keep expectations disciplined: sixty votes are needed, at least seven Democrats must cross, and the bill has already missed two windows. But the direction of travel matters more than any single vote. A securities regulator writing crypto rules rather than lawsuits, and a White House lobbying for market-structure legislation, is an environment no allocator was working in two years ago.
The File That Got Worse
Honesty demands an update we had hoped not to write. In July we noted that the 60-day clock on a U.S.–Iran agreement would expire before this edition, “one way or the other.” It expired the other way. After renewed attacks on shipping, the U.S. Navy reimposed its blockade of Iranian ports on July 14,⁹ and the deadline passed on August 17 with no deal – the two sides, by most accounts, further apart than when they signed the June memorandum.10 The Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, tanker traffic is running at a small fraction of pre-war levels, and oil prices have climbed accordingly.¹⁰ This file did not just stay open; it deteriorated. We will keep reporting it plainly.
Here is what should interest an investor: Bitcoin rallied 25% straight through it. In April, the opening act of this crisis knocked Bitcoin from above $74,000 to below $71,000 in a matter of days – it traded like every other risk asset. In August, with the same crisis worsening and an oil-driven inflation impulse keeping the Fed hawkish, Bitcoin rose alongside gold instead. We are careful not to over-read a few months of correlation data. But an asset that sells off on war headlines is a risk proxy, and an asset that rallies with gold while a supply shock stokes inflation is behaving like a hedge. August looked like the latter.
Under the Hood
The demand pipe reopened. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in more than $3.03 billion in August, according to SoSoValue data – the strongest month since October 2025, and nearly double April.¹¹,¹² The buying was persistent rather than lumpy: eight consecutive sessions of net inflows through August 27, worth about $2.8 billion per SoSoValue data.¹² Last month we borrowed Bitfinex’s standard for a durable bottom – an institutional bid that turns “aggressive or price-agnostic.” A $3.03 billion month, bought into rising prices, is the closest that signal has come to firing since this drawdown began. The honest caveat: even after August, 2026 flows remain negative year-to-date, at roughly –$2.26 billion.¹¹ August repaired the year; it did not erase it.
Lyn Alden, whose midsummer read on sentiment was the bleakest we quoted all year, has moved to cautious construction. In a CNBC interview, she noted that by “almost every metric,” Bitcoin sits near the low end of its valuation and sentiment range, the fast money is washed out, and the market no longer expects Strategy to be a forced seller – though, characteristically, she adds that Bitcoin is “not necessarily out of the woods yet.”¹³
Looking Ahead
The near-term risk has a name and a date. On August 28, Kevin Warsh delivered his first Jackson Hole keynote as Fed Chair, and it was hawkish on purpose: with PCE inflation at 3.7% over the past year, he said he would be “hard pressed to describe broad financial conditions as restrictive,” and that unless the Fed can be confident underlying inflation is moving to its objective “clearly and at sufficient speed,” it has “work to do.”¹⁴,¹⁵ Market odds of a September rate hike jumped from 35% to 59% per CME FedWatch, and Bitcoin gave back its highs, dipping to around $78,700.14,15 September now stacks the calendar: the expanded buyback operations begin, the CLARITY cloture vote lands on the 15th, and the FOMC meets the very next day with a hike genuinely on the table – all in what is historically Bitcoin’s weakest month.
Notice, though, what the August tape actually showed: the two most powerful economic institutions in the world pulling in opposite directions – a Treasury buying duration to keep the government’s borrowing costs down, and a Federal Reserve threatening hikes to reassert its inflation mandate. That contest – not any single speech or vote – is the regime Bitcoin is priced in, and August was the month the market began pricing it.
A turn is not a trophy. The checklist from here is simple: hold the mid-$70,000s on retests, keep the ETF bid alive, and eventually break and hold the low-$80,000s. Until then, we will call August what it was: the month the evidence caught up with the thesis.
We remain constructive Bitcoin investors, and we look forward to what September brings.
Sources
1 The Crypto Times, “Bitcoin Price Holds Steady in Low $60,000s After Two Months of Consolidation,” August 5, 2026. https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/08/05/bitcoin-price-holds-steady-in-low-60000s-after-two-months-of-consolidation-whats-next/
2 CoinDesk, “Live updates: Bitcoin eyes 25% gain in August, best month since November 2024,” August 31, 2026. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/08/31/live-updates-bitcoin-holds-usd78-000-as-yen-breaks-160-and-rate-hike-bets-lift-the-dollar
3 The Crypto Times, “Bitcoin Price Gained 24.95% in August — Its Best Month of 2026,” September 1, 2026. https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/09/01/bitcoins-first-positive-august-since-2021-comes-with-a-familiar-september-test/
4 CoinDesk, “Bessent’s $4 billion bond buyback wanted lower yields. It got a bitcoin surge instead,” August 24, 2026. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/08/24/bessent-s-usd4-billion-bond-buyback-wanted-lower-yields-it-got-a-bitcoin-surge-instead
5 Fortune, “Traders bet bitcoin was stuck below $67,000. The Treasury blew that trade up in one afternoon,” August 23, 2026. https://fortune.com/2026/08/23/bitcoin-squeeze-treasury-buyback-shorts-blown-up/
6 The Block, “‘Altitude sickness can wait’: Bitcoin’s historic short squeeze, Bessent catalyst may signal bull-market reset, analysts say,” August 26, 2026. https://www.theblock.co/news/markets/2026-08-26-altitude-sickness-can-wait-bitcoins-historic-short-squeeze-bessent-catalyst-may-signal-bull-market-reset-analysts-say-412785
7 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, “SEC Proposes New Regulation Crypto Assets,” August 18, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026-76-sec-proposes-new-regulation-crypto-assets
8 Bloomberg, “Trump Asks Congress to Pass Crypto Bill Alongside Executives,” August 19, 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-19/trump-asks-congress-to-pass-crypto-bill-alongside-executives
9 Stars and Stripes, “US strikes Iran for fourth day in a row, naval blockade resumes,” July 14, 2026. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/middle_east/2026-07-14/centcom-new-strikes-prepare-to-resume-blockade-22265989.html
10 PBS NewsHour, “The 60-day deadline for a peace deal with Iran is expiring. Here’s where things stand,” August 17, 2026. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/the-60-day-deadline-for-a-peace-deal-with-iran-is-expiring-heres-where-things-stand
11 Cointelegraph, “Spot Bitcoin ETFs Add $314M as August Inflows Top $3B,” August 26, 2026. https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-etf-august-inflows-surge-past-3-billion
12 CoinDesk, “Live updates: Bitcoin trades near $80,000 as ETF inflows hit eight straight days,” August 27, 2026. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/08/27/live-updates-bitcoin-etf-inflows-hit-eight-straight-days-as-august-tops-usd3-billion
13 Bitcoin Magazine, “Bitcoin Could Attract More Buyers As Fast Money Is Washed Out, Says Lyn Alden,” August 20, 2026. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/bitcoin-price-to-rise-says-lyn-alden
14 Federal Reserve Board, “Keynote remarks by Chairman Warsh at the 2026 Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium: In Our Time,” August 28, 2026. https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/warsh20260828a.htm
15 Benzinga, “Fed September Hike Odds Spike to 59% After Warsh’s Hawkish Jackson Hole Speech,” August 28, 2026. https://www.benzinga.com/markets/prediction-markets/26/08/61499396/fed-hike-odds-warsh-jackson-hole
Disclaimer
Published September 14, 2026.
Evolve Funds Group Inc. is the investment fund manager and portfolio manager. The Evolve Bitcoin ETF (“EBIT”) is offered by Evolve Funds Group Inc., and distributed through authorized dealers.
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