Bitcoin Touches $81,237 As August Surge Ignites Regional Portfolios
Bitcoin touched $81,237.94 before settling near $79,276 by the evening in the UAE, marking its highest point since mid-May. The move crowns a 28% gain for August alone, the asset’s strongest monthly performance since November 2024.
The momentum accelerated after US President Donald Trump urged Congress to pass legislation clarifying crypto regulation. Concurrently, a softer US dollar and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s efforts to ease bond market pressure helped reignite buying, sitting alongside roughly $7.2 billion in forced liquidations of bearish bets, according to Century Financial.
Market mechanics behind the move show a shift away from pure leverage. Alice Liu, Head of Research at CoinMarketCap, noted that open interest stands at just 1.2% of Bitcoin’s market cap, indicating that leveraged positioning was not the primary driver. Instead, exchange-traded funds absorbed close to $2 billion across six consecutive days of inflows, paired with $944 million in spot buying. As Liu put it, the shorts didn’t cause the move, but served as fuel through the $80,000 barrier. Ryan Lee of Bitget Research pointed to a single-day inflow of $517 million, the strongest since early May, following a summer where prices lingered below $64,000.
The upside path hinges on whether spot demand can replace the short squeeze. Lee maps a near-term trading channel between $74,000 and $81,000, noting that a pullback to $75,000, $76,000 would align with standard profit-taking. If ETF inflows persist through upcoming US inflation data and the Federal Reserve chair’s Jackson Hole speech, analysts see a path toward the $82,000, $87,000 range.
Conversely, Vijay Valecha, Chief Investment Officer at Century Financial, struck a note of caution, warning that a rapid surge driven by liquidations reflects momentum-chasing as much as structural allocation. True durability, Valecha argues, relies on continued regulatory progress and steady institutional commitments rather than a one-week squeeze. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s correlation with gold has climbed to +0.46, its highest level since 2021, reflecting a shift where the asset is trading more like a traditional hedge than a high-beta tech stock.
