Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) peaked at $126,000 in October 2025 and has lost half its value since then. It traded at $87,500 at the start of January and fell 34% in the first six months of the year, and bottomed at $58,000 on July 1, which is its lowest price in 21 months.
Bitcoin then recovered 13% off that low through July, reaching $65,500, but it could not hold the gains and closed the month at $63,700. The number one cryptocurrency trades at $63,000 today, and investors are wondering whether it could reclaim $70,000 this August. But BTC has closed August in the red in each of the last four years, so will that change this year?
Why $65,500 Is Capping Every Bitcoin Rally
Bitcoin last traded below $60,000 in October 2024, and it held above that level for the next 20 months. Every time the BTC price fell close to $60,000, the bulls came to the rescue and bought enough to push it back up, which is why traders came to treat $60,000 as the floor under the market.
But that floor broke in June, when Bitcoin fell from around $67,000 to $59,100 between June 4 and 6, wiping out more than $3 billion in leveraged positions in 48 hours. BTC slid again to $58,035 on June 25, which marks its lowest price since September 2024. Bitcoin closed the month down about 20%, which is its worst month since June 2022.
Bitcoin recovered above $60,000 in July and held it for the rest of the month, but it never got past $65,500. The BTC price climbed to $65,470 on July 16 after softer inflation data, and sellers pushed it straight back to $64,000. It reached $65,500 again on July 27 when the U.S. and Iran paused hostilities, then failed three times to clear $65,600, wiping out $75 million in leveraged trades. Bitcoin dropped to $62,700 on July 28 and closed the month at $63,600.
The people who bought Bitcoin in the last five months paid an average of $68,000 to $69,000, and they are all sitting on losses at $63,000. Most of them want out at what they paid, so they sell every time the price climbs, and that selling is what kills each rally before it reaches $66,000.
Bitcoin’s 50-month exponential moving average, which is the average price over the last 50 months, is at $66,000 and has separated Bitcoin’s bull and bear phases for years. It has stayed above the current BTC price since June, so Bitcoin needs a weekly close above $66,000 to break the resistance.
August Is Bitcoin’s Worst Month on Record
August has been the weakest month of Bitcoin’s year since it started trading in 2013. Bitcoin has closed August in the red in nine of the last 13 years, and its median August return is negative 7.49%. And that is the only negative median on its entire calendar.
Bitcoin’s last four Augusts have all been red, although the damage has shrunk every year. Bitcoin fell 13.88% in August 2022, 11.29% in 2023, 8.60% in 2024, and 6.49% in 2025, and that works out to an average loss of 10% across the four years.
Using the negative 7.49% median, Bitcoin could drop from $63,000 to $58,281 by the end of August, which is $246 away from the low it set in June. However, August is not always red for Bitcoin. It closed in the green in 2013, 2020 and 2021, and it gained 65.32% in August 2017, which is why the average August return is positive at 1.12% even though most Augusts lose money. So, roughly one August in four has ended higher.
The August Events That Could Move Bitcoin
The Federal Reserve does not meet in August, but traders will spend the month pricing its next decision on September 16. The Fed held rates at 3.50% to 3.75% on July 29 in a 9-3 vote, with three officials voting to raise them, and futures traders put the odds of a September hike at about 60% straight after that meeting. And that would be the first U.S. rate increase in three years.
Higher rates hurt Bitcoin because savings accounts and government bonds start paying more, which gives investors a safe return they can hold instead. Bitcoin pays no yield at all, so money tends to leave it when rates rise and come back when they fall.
Two reports in August could decide whether that hike happens. The jobs report on August 7 will show whether the economy is cooling, and July’s inflation reading on August 12 will show whether prices are still climbing. Inflation is running at 3.7% against the Fed’s 2% target, so a hot reading would make a September hike close to certain and a soft one would take it back off the table.
Chairman Kevin Warsh then speaks at the Jackson Hole symposium from August 27 to 29, where this year’s theme is “Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy.” He told reporters on July 29 that his keynote is “a blank piece of paper right now,” so traders have nothing to price in from it yet.
Institutional money has already been leaving Bitcoin ahead of all this. Investors pulled $4.52 billion out of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in June, the worst month since the funds launched, and put just $205 million back in July, the smallest monthly inflow on record.
Bitcoin Price Prediction for August 2026
Here are the three scenarios for where Bitcoin could trade this August.
Bullish prediction: $68,000 to $70,000
Bitcoin could reach $68,000 to $70,000 if inflation cools in the August 12 report and traders price the September hike back out. If Bitcoin clears $66,000, the traders holding short positions since June would have to buy back to cover, and that buying could speed the move up. The largest holders look positioned for this, with Santiment data showing wallets holding 10 to 10,000 BTC turned from sellers in June to adding 19,696 coins in the week to July 27.
Base prediction: $60,000 to $65,500
We expect Bitcoin to trade between $60,000 and $65,500 in August. The Fed does not decide until September 16, so the August data leaves the question open either way, and traders have little reason to take big positions before they know the answer. Trading volumes are also lower over the summer, so there is less money around to push Bitcoin out of that range.
Bearish prediction: $55,000 to $58,000
Bitcoin could fall to the $55,000 to $58,000 range if inflation comes in hot and a September hike looks close to certain, since higher rates tend to pull money out of assets that pay no yield. Bitcoin would have to lose the $60,000 support again, which it last closed a month below in June. Bitcoin could also fall to those levels if Warsh sounds hawkish at Jackson Hole on August 27.
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