Bitcoin posts strongest August performance since 2017

Bitcoin just did something in August that it hasn’t done in nearly a decade: it made August look good. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap gained approximately 25-30% over the course of the month, rallying from early-August lows near $62,000-$64,000 to briefly surpass $81,000 before settling around $78,000-$79,000 by August 30. That makes it Bitcoin’s strongest August since 2017, when the asset surged roughly 65% in the same month and kicked off one of the most iconic bull runs in crypto history. A month that usually hurts August is historically one of Bitcoin’s worst-performing months. Since 2013, the median return for August sits at approximately negative 7%. This year flipped that script entirely. The rally was punctuated by violent moves, most notably a single day that saw $2.75 billion in short liquidations, a record-setting cascade that forcibly closed bearish positions and accelerated the upward momentum. What sparked the rally Several factors converged to produce the breakout. Expanded liquidity expectations tied to US Treasury bond buyback results gave macro-sensitive traders a reason to get aggressive. US spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $1.92 billion in inflows during th...