Bitcoin trades at $65,140, up roughly 4% on the week, in a move that had less to do with the digital asset market's own internal fundamentals and more to do with a repricing of US interest-rate expectations. The main trigger was Friday's employment report: nonfarm payrolls fell by 23k in July, against a consensus estimate of an 85k rise, the first monthly loss in jobs since February. May and June figures were also revised lower by a combined 103k, even as the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1% from 4.2% in June. The data weakened the case for a rate hike and supported long-duration assets.
The reading fed directly into monetary-policy expectations. According to the CME FedWatch tool, the probability of a 0.25-point hike by the Federal Reserve in September slipped to nearly 42% after the report, from 55% the previous day. The Fed nonetheless remains divided: the labor market's relative resilience leaves little room for cuts, while inflationary risks remain elevated amid oil price volatility. Some committee members already showed a clear tightening bias at the July meeting, which keeps the next test firmly in focus. That test is Wednesday's consumer price index, expected to rise 0.2% in both the core and headline figures.
The geopolitical component is the principal risk to this more constructive thesis. Brent rose 1% to $86.40 a barrel, extending a gain of more than 5% over three sessions, after Iran rejected talks with Washington and a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz stayed out of reach. Iran has conditioned any reopening on compensation, an end to sanctions and the naval blockade, and the withdrawal of US forces from the region. As long as the corridor, which normally handles around one-fifth of global oil consumption, remains blocked, pressure on energy prices and inflation expectations keeps the possibility of additional monetary tightening alive, which would cap any more sustained advance in digital assets.
Crude Oil Prices | Source: TradingView, Teroxx Research
On the regulatory front, the CLARITY Act advanced through its first procedural motions in the Senate over the weekend, the most concrete movement yet for the sector's central legislative priority. Even so, the bill missed the window for a vote before the summer recess and enters September in a fragile position, dependent on a procedural queue known as cloture, which requires 60 votes. The passage will probably require the support of at least ten Senate Democrats, who are currently uncertain about the dispute over the ban on senior officials launching and profiting from their own digital asset projects. Polymarket assigned only a 14% probability that the bill becomes law this year in its 6 August reading. A delay would weigh most heavily on Ethereum, stablecoin projects and the broader token market, for which statutory clarity matters more than it does for Bitcoin, though the underlying regulatory direction remains constructive and increasingly bipartisan.
The price support came despite a run of adverse technical events within Bitcoin itself. The Coldcard wallet exploit, which surfaced on 30 July, has already led to at least US$111 million in losses, with Galaxy Research estimating total losses could exceed US$130 million, or roughly 2,000 BTC. K33 measured around 890k BTC moving on-chain over seven days, the highest level of active supply this year, in a pattern that historically coincides with local market tops and bottoms. Over the same period, a critical flaw in BTCPay Server drained merchant Lightning nodes, and the BIP-110 fork effectively stalled after producing just two blocks in about eight hours, with support from only 2.53% of recent blocks, far below the 55% threshold.
Source: K33, Teroxx Research
ETF behavior, however, told the opposite story to the technical stress. US spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs attracted a combined US$1.1 billion last week, their strongest performance since April. Bitcoin funds took in US$853.5 million across five consecutive sessions of inflows, with BlackRock's IBIT accounting for US$693.7 million, more than 80% of the total, and Fidelity's FBTC for a further US$116.4 million. Ether funds drew $244.9 million, extending the longest positive run of 2026 to five weeks. Several funds recorded inflows every day since the Coldcard exploit, suggesting the flight from self-custody may have benefited regulated products, though the Ether ETF inflows, with no exposure to the flaw, weaken that reading. Even so, trading volume remains near multi-year lows at $8.19 billion, down 9% on the week, and both categories remain negative for the year, with $4.44 billion in net outflows for Bitcoin and $873 million for Ether.
Crypto ETF Net Inflow | Source: CoinMarketCap, Teroxx Research
Equities set the tone for the week. The S&P 500 closed Friday up 0.6%, back in record territory, while the MSCI All Country World Index rose 0.1%, its seventh gain in eight sessions. Chipmakers led, with a regional semiconductor gauge rising more than 1.5% on gains at Taiwan Semiconductor and SK Hynix. Among the other digital assets, Ether traded near US$1,919, also up almost 3% on the week; Solana was the standout among the majors with a gain of around 5% over seven days, and XRP was the negative exception, down 4% over the period.
Looking ahead, the week will be defined less by the digital asset market itself and more by the inflation data: Wednesday's CPI and Thursday's PPI will indicate whether the easing in rate expectations holds or reverses. A hotter-than-expected reading would revive the case for a September hike and give back part of Bitcoin's recent momentum, while the resolution, or the escalation, of the Strait of Hormuz question and the progress of the CLARITY Act negotiations remain the variables with the greatest bearing on the market's direction over the coming weeks.
Bitcoin holds above $80K as the CLARITY Act advances in the Senate, ETF inflows stay strong, and institutional demand continues tightening supply.
