Bitcoin trades near $77,500 after closing out an August gain of roughly 25%, its best August since 2017, and reclaiming its 50-month moving average for the first time since the last crypto winter began. Traders on the Myriad prediction market currently give 77% odds that bitcoin reaches $84,000 before it falls to $55,000, but September's historically weak seasonality and a hawkish Fed tone complicate that bullish case.
Bitcoin is trading around $77,500 on the first day of September, down about 1.3% on the day, after closing out one of its strongest months of the cycle. The pullback sits right under a resistance zone that has held near the $82,500 price line.
The rally that carried bitcoin through August traces back to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's decision to double the size of long-end bond buybacks on August 19, a liquidity move that hammered Treasury yields and sparked a short squeeze in crypto. Around the same time, the Securities and Exchange Commission offered a framework for crypto investment contracts, adding regulatory tailwind to the move. Bitcoin briefly topped $81,000 in the days after the buyback news before slipping back under $78,000. It closed out August with a monthly gain of roughly 25%, up from a 21-month low near $59,300 hit in June.
Fed's Jackson Hole tone cools the rally
The rally cooled after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh used his first Jackson Hole address as chairman to warn that inflation numbers "are more concerning" than the labor market, according to Decrypt, reviving talk of a rate hike at the Fed's September 15-16 meeting.
Daily chart shows resistance building
Bitcoin opened September exactly where August left off, at $78,571, before sliding to an intraday low of $77,440. On the daily chart, the Relative Strength Index sits at 66.1, bullish territory that is edging toward the 70 mark where traders typically expect profit-taking. The Average Directional Index, which measures trend strength, is at a firm 43.7, well above the 25 threshold that confirms a real trend is in place. The 50-day and 200-day moving averages are still in a bearish crossover, however, meaning the longer-term trend structure hasn't fully flipped bullish even as price has moved ahead of it.
Monthly chart ends a roughly ten-month winter signal
On the monthly chart, bitcoin had spent essentially all of the second half of 2025 through July 2026 trading below its 50-month moving average, something that happened only during the 2018-2019 bear market and 2022's collapse after the Terra/LUNA and FTX blowups. August's candle, the biggest green bar on the chart, pushed bitcoin's price back above that average after its best month since November 2024. But monthly RSI sits at a neutral 50.6, and monthly ADX at 23.7, just shy of the 25 mark that would confirm a new trend rather than a bounce.
September works against the bulls
Since 2013, September has been bitcoin's weakest calendar month, a seasonal drag compounded this year by Warsh's hawkish tone and the looming September 15-16 Fed meeting where hike odds have jumped. Treasury's buyback program runs through the November 4 refunding quarter, and spot bitcoin ETFs have kept pulling in net inflows through the month, giving bulls a structural argument even as seasonality works against them.
Source: Decrypt
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