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Is the bear market finally over?

Bitcoin hit $79,400 overnight. $4 billion in shorts gone in two days. Analysts are split on what comes next. Have a good weekend. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ SPONSORED BY Friday, August 21, 2026   Bitcoin touched $79,400 overnight — the highest since May — before pulling back to around $77,000 as markets opened Friday. That leaves $80,000 as the immediate test before ETF trading closes for the weekend. This has been bitcoin’s best week since 2023: up 18%, with $4 billion in short positions liquidated across two days. The week’s rally has produced an unexpected Friday morning question: is this how bear markets end, or is it a mechanically driven squeeze that will fade once the forced buying stops? Smart people are genuinely split. U.S. flash PMI data lands today; Jackson Hole — where central bank governors make market-moving speeches — arrives next week. When U.S. markets close, bitcoin enters thinner weekend trading with no ETF bid and Iranian oil tensions still unresolved. Stay alert, and have a good weekend. Read today’s full report → Market snapshot As of 8am EST Asset Price 24h BTC $76,975 +7.12% ETH $2,350 +5.00% SOL $89.80 +5.10% XRP $1.18 +3.50% Prices approximate. Visit coindesk.com/price for live data. A message from Grayscale Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF (ticker: HYPG) is the lowest-fee HYPE fund in the U.S.1 Hyperliquid is emerging as critical infrastructure for onchain markets — a high-performance blockchain that processed nearly $3 trillion in derivatives volume and generated ~$800 million in revenue in 2025, with no venture capital backing.2 Lowest management fee in its category (0.29%) Over $100 million in AUM3 Potential staking rewards — HYPG seeks to stake 70%+ of its assets; HYPE staking rewards averaged ~2.2% last year.4 HYPG, an exchange traded product, is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (“40 Act”), and therefore is not subject to the same regulations and protections as 40 Act registered ETFs and mutual funds. HYPG is subject to significant risk and heightened volatility. HYPG is not suitable for an investor who cannot afford the loss of the entire investment. An investment in HYPG is not a direct investment in HYPE. Learn more 1 Lowest-fee HYPE fund in the U.S. based on management fee of 0.29%. Brokerage fees and other expenses may apply. 2 Crypto Briefing, December 26, 2025. 3 Bloomberg L.P. as of 6/X/26. Subject to change. 4 Stakingrewards.com. Historical daily average measured from 5/1/25 to 04/21/26. Past performance is not indicative of future results. This information must be preceded or accompanied by a Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF prospectus, which may be obtained by clicking here. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing. This information should not be relied upon as research, investment advice, or a recommendation regarding any security in particular. Potential staking rewards are earned by the Fund. Staking rewards are not guaranteed and should not be considered an indication of Fund performance. The Fund’s ability to engage in staking is conditional and may be modified. Staking requires that the Fund lock up HYPE for the period of time required by the staking protocol, meaning the Fund cannot sell or transfer the staked HYPE, thereby making it illiquid for the period it is being staked. Foreside Fund Services, LLC is the Marketing Agent for the Fund. © 2026 Grayscale. CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets. L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal. What matters today Markets   Story 1 of 3 Bitcoin faces an $80,000 test as thinner weekend liquidity looms. Bitcoin entered Friday’s U.S. session trading near $77,000 after briefly reaching $79,400 overnight — the highest level since May — making $80,000 the immediate test before ETF trading closes for the weekend. Spot U.S. bitcoin ETFs posted net inflows of $606 million on Thursday, the most since May 1, and Friday’s session is tracking higher still. Weekly inflows are on track for the strongest since October. CoinShares’ head of research James Butterfill described $80,000 as “an important boundary” for bitcoin, adding that a decisive move through it will likely require confirmation that Federal Reserve policy is moving away from tightening — confirmation that could emerge at next week’s Jackson Hole symposium, where Fed Chair Kevin Warsh and other central bank governors are scheduled to speak. Before then, U.S. flash PMI readings today could move yields and the dollar, both of which matter for bitcoin’s next direction. Butterfill flagged a structural caution: “With accumulation by large holders still modest in scale, the market lacks the depth of conviction that typically underpins a durable breakout.” The rally is “primarily a macro story rather than a crypto-specific one,” he said. When U.S. markets close, bitcoin passes into thinner weekend trading without the ETF bid and more vulnerable to geopolitical developments in the Gulf. Strategy, which had been sitting on an $8 billion unrealized loss earlier this month, is now sitting on a $1.4 billion unrealized profit as BTC crossed above the company’s average purchase price. The ETHBTC ratio is also notable: the ratio is above its 50-week exponential moving average and testing a key resistance level at 0.03 — a clean break above that level would historically signal sustained ETH outperformance over bitcoin. Read more → Markets   Story 2 of 3 Analysts are split on whether bitcoin’s surge past key levels signals a new bull run. Bitcoin’s sudden move toward $80,000 this week has produced a genuine disagreement among seasoned market watchers about what it actually means. In one corner: Mati Greenspan of Quantum Economics, who said “this is generally what bottoms look like — they begin with a short squeeze, a giant green candle, start breaking above technical levels, and suddenly everyone waiting for BTC at $40,000 is rethinking their strategy.” He sees FOMO accelerating from here and put the odds of a significant pullback as “very slim.” In the other: Jason Fernandes of AdLunam, who warned against calling the end of the bear market “without sustained spot ETF inflows and clear macroeconomic rate easing.” His concern is that bitcoin could run out of steam at the $75,000–$76,000 overhead resistance. The mechanics of the rally add important context to the debate. Adam Morgan McCarthy of LO:TECH offered the sharpest read: more than half of Wednesday’s 7.1% gain landed inside a single hour on about a third of the day’s volume. Binance traded $1.26 billion of bitcoin futures in a single 60-second window — 361 times a normal minute. That is not organic demand; it is the signature of a short squeeze, where forced buying cascades. McCarthy pointed to gold as the week’s cleaner macro signal: it rallied on the Treasury doubling bond buybacks without any of the forced-buying distortion that inflated bitcoin’s price. “If you’re looking for where investors are actually hedging against currency and inflation risk this week, gold shows it, and bitcoin doesn’t,” he said. Tobias Bauer of TBV added that the funding rate on bitcoin futures has now hit exchange maximums, meaning the cost of holding a leveraged long position has become expensive — a typical signal that the crowd has positioned strongly in one direction and the trade is getting crowded. Read more → Markets   Story 3 of 3 Bitcoin, ether and solana climb as another $1 billion in shorts gets wiped out. A second consecutive wave of forced short closures swept through crypto markets in Asian trading Friday, liquidating roughly $1 billion in bearish positions out of $1.23 billion in total, across 140,416 individual traders. That follows the $3 billion wiped out on Thursday — the largest single-day short liquidation on record going back to 2021 — bringing the two-day total to more than $4 billion. The largest single position closed in Friday’s Asian session was a $25.13 million bitcoin trade on Hyperliquid. To understand what these numbers mean: a liquidation happens when a trader borrows to make a larger bet than their capital alone would cover, the market moves against them, and the exchange automatically closes the position before losses exceed the margin posted. These were traders who bet the price would fall — each forced closure required buying bitcoin to exit, which pushed prices higher and created further cascading liquidations. Bitcoin climbed to just under $75,500 overnight before pulling back to $77,000 by the time U.S. markets opened; two days ago it was trading near $64,100, a move of nearly 20% in 48 hours. The altcoin rally has been broad and in some cases has exceeded bitcoin’s gains. Ether added roughly 5% in the latest session to $2,350 and is up 24.5% on the week. Hyperliquid’s HYPE leads the majors at roughly 27% on the week, topping $73. Solana traded near $90, up 17% on the week. Dogecoin gained about 9% in the session. BNB rose 6% to $660. Tron lagged. The rally traces to Wednesday, when the U.S. Treasury doubled the size of its long-end bond buyback operations from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation, easing conditions across the roughly $30 trillion Treasury market and lifting appetite for risk assets globally. Bitcoin then broke through resistance near $66,600, the level that had capped the price since early July. Bitcoin’s total market value stands at $1.5 trillion — still about 40% below the record above $126,000 set last October. Read more → CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets. L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal. Crypto Daybook Americas: A newsletter from CoinDesk Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here.  Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.  CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011, USA Unsubscribe Manage preferences

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The biggest short squeeze in crypto since 2021

Bitcoin just broke $72,000. $3 billion in shorts got wiped out overnight. Trump invited crypto CEOs to the White House. And X wants to pay influencers in stablecoins. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ SPONSORED BY Thursday, August 20, 2026   Bitcoin broke out of its six-week range overnight, surging above $72,000 for the first time since June 1. The trigger was the bond market, not crypto: the White House signaled support for Treasury buybacks, yields pulled back from their multi-decade highs, the Dollar Index collapsed to a three-month low of 98.77, and suddenly bitcoin — which had been locked at $64,000 while the dollar was strong and yields were surging — had the conditions it needed. The move wiped out $3 billion in short positions, the largest forced-short-closing wave since 2021. XRP jumped 15%. ETH jumped 18%. Ether hit $2,250. And simultaneously, Trump hosted the CEOs of Coinbase, Ripple, Gemini, Chainlink and others at the White House, calling on Congress to pass the Clarity Act. The rally raises a genuine question: how much of this was already priced into a bill that still hasn’t cleared 60 Senate votes? Read today’s full report → Market snapshot As of 8am EST Asset Price 24h BTC $71,936 +11.74% ETH $2,250 +18.00% SOL $88.40 +17.60% XRP $1.14 +15.00% Prices approximate. Visit coindesk.com/price for live data. A message from Grayscale Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF (ticker: HYPG) is the lowest-fee HYPE fund in the U.S.1 Hyperliquid is emerging as critical infrastructure for onchain markets — a high-performance blockchain that processed nearly $3 trillion in derivatives volume and generated ~$800 million in revenue in 2025, with no venture capital backing.2 Lowest management fee in its category (0.29%) Over $100 million in AUM3 Potential staking rewards — HYPG seeks to stake 70%+ of its assets; HYPE staking rewards averaged ~2.2% last year.4 HYPG, an exchange traded product, is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (“40 Act”), and therefore is not subject to the same regulations and protections as 40 Act registered ETFs and mutual funds. HYPG is subject to significant risk and heightened volatility. HYPG is not suitable for an investor who cannot afford the loss of the entire investment. An investment in HYPG is not a direct investment in HYPE. Learn more 1 Lowest-fee HYPE fund in the U.S. based on management fee of 0.29%. Brokerage fees and other expenses may apply. 2 Crypto Briefing, December 26, 2025. 3 Bloomberg L.P. as of 6/X/26. Subject to change. 4 Stakingrewards.com. Historical daily average measured from 5/1/25 to 04/21/26. Past performance is not indicative of future results. This information must be preceded or accompanied by a Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF prospectus, which may be obtained by clicking here. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing. This information should not be relied upon as research, investment advice, or a recommendation regarding any security in particular. Potential staking rewards are earned by the Fund. Staking rewards are not guaranteed and should not be considered an indication of Fund performance. The Fund’s ability to engage in staking is conditional and may be modified. Staking requires that the Fund lock up HYPE for the period of time required by the staking protocol, meaning the Fund cannot sell or transfer the staked HYPE, thereby making it illiquid for the period it is being staked. Foreside Fund Services, LLC is the Marketing Agent for the Fund. © 2026 Grayscale. CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets. L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal. What matters today Markets   Story 1 of 3 Fed liquidity promises and dollar weakness could determine bitcoin’s next move. What snapped bitcoin out of its six-week range was not a crypto catalyst — it was a bond-market one. The White House signaled support for increased Treasury buybacks, which calmed the global bond selloff that had pushed the U.S. 30-year yield to nearly 5.34% on Tuesday. Yields pulled back. The Dollar Index collapsed 0.88% to 98.77, its lowest level since May, breaking below a key technical support level. Bitcoin, which had been range-bound partly because the strong dollar made non-yielding assets expensive to hold, suddenly had room to move. It did: surging from the $64,000 range to above $72,000 — a 14% advance that pressed above the $68,000 resistance level on the weekly chart that it had recently failed to penetrate. On the technical read, a confirmed weekly close above $68,000 opens a path to the next resistance at $78,000. The move produced $3.3 billion in total liquidations across crypto markets, with $3 billion of those coming from shorts — the largest wave of forced short closures in records going back to 2021. ETFs drew roughly $700 million in inflows, the biggest single-day haul in months. Pedro Fontes of Mercado Bitcoin framed the structural argument: “If the world’s largest debt market needs support in order to function with greater stability, demand grows for assets that are scarce, predictable, and outside the logic of public debt expansion.” Matt Cole, CEO of Strive, added on X that he has long believed the Dollar Index is in a “structural decline that is likely to continue,” which he described as a bullish environment for bitcoin. The caveat going into Thursday: BTC’s margin-borrow rate has risen to 4.6% from 3.9% before the rally — meaning traders are re-entering short positions into the strength. Initial jobless claims land today and geopolitical developments around Iran remain a live variable. Read more → Finance   Story 2 of 3 Elon Musk’s X is exploring stablecoins to pay influencers and content providers. Elon Musk’s X is in discussions about using stablecoins, including Circle’s USDC, to pay royalties to content creators and influential users on the platform, according to a person familiar with the plans. The conversations are ongoing and X has not publicly confirmed them — the company did not respond to requests for comment — but the person said they also work with other social media platforms exploring stablecoins for creator payments, framing it as an industry-wide trend rather than an X-specific initiative. The direction is consistent with Musk’s existing stablecoin exposure: SpaceX already uses stablecoins to collect cross-border payments from Starlink customers in emerging markets, where traditional payment rails are slow or expensive. In March Musk hired Benji Taylor — who led design at Coinbase’s Base network — as head of design at X, with a role that also spans xAI and SpaceX, tying the platform’s design leadership to someone with deep wallet and DeFi experience. X is simultaneously overhauling how it compensates creators: it is phasing out its Revenue Sharing program in favor of a new Original Content Rewards Program designed to pay creators for original ideas, reporting and commentary rather than for driving engagement through reposting. Using stablecoins for that payout layer would give X an instant global payment rail without currency conversion friction — particularly valuable for the large share of its creator base outside the United States. If implemented, the move would represent one of the largest-scale real-world deployments of stablecoins for consumer-facing creator payments, in a market where the total stablecoin cap has now surpassed $300 billion. The wider stablecoin ecosystem also got a boost this week: the U.S. Treasury Department proposed its approach to stablecoin rules under the GENIUS Act and the FASB proposed treating stablecoins as cash equivalents in accounting standards — two regulatory moves that collectively reduce the friction for platforms like X to build stablecoin payment infrastructure. Read more → Policy   Story 3 of 3 Trump pushes Congress to move on the Clarity Act at a White House crypto event. President Trump hosted the CEOs of Coinbase, Gemini, Ripple, Chainlink Labs and others at the White House on Wednesday, calling on Congress to pass “a fair version” of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. “We’ll open the door to the next wave of innovations and innovators,” Trump told the assembled executives. “Keep us ahead of China, keep us ahead of everyone else.” The gathering preceded the first meeting of the new CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee on Thursday, which includes the chief executives of Kraken, Anchorage Digital, Grayscale and OKX among others. Chainlink Labs CEO Sergey Nazarov told CoinDesk that Trump took the group aside to the Oval Office for further discussion, seeking feedback on what the administration should be doing and discussing the path to passing the Clarity Act. Nazarov said Trump and his advisers “thought that it was very doable,” outlining “a few small issues” and naming a handful of senators who need to be persuaded. The open question is the Democratic side: negotiators have sought ethics limits on Trump’s personal crypto involvement — and by extension other senior officials across all three branches of government — a sticking point that has created an awkward dynamic for a bill the White House is simultaneously championing. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins framed his agency’s new Reg Crypto proposal directly in terms of the bill’s importance: “Our proposal would provide crypto entrepreneurs the certainty to raise capital in the United States… and the SEC is doing everything we can to support that work.” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called the Clarity Act “a true bipartisan compromise” and urged everyone to get it over the finish line. The bill has a final Senate window in September before Congress goes on a lengthy recess through November. It still hasn’t been tested for the 60 votes it would need to clear. A separate debate has now opened: whether the rally that took bitcoin to $72,000 overnight has already priced in a Clarity Act passage — or whether there is still more to come if the Senate delivers. Read more → CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets. L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal. Crypto Daybook Americas: A newsletter from CoinDesk Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here.  Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.  CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011, USA Unsubscribe Manage preferences

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