Bitcoin Hits $81,000 as Galaxy Flags Potential Cycle Bottom
Bitcoin (BTC)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
news.bitcoin.com reports that Bitcoin added $14,264 in a single week, marking the largest dollar gain in the asset's history. The price rose 22.7% to close at $77,387 on August 23, driven by a U.S. Treasury decision to double liquidity buybacks to at least $4 billion. Momentum pushed Bitcoin to a three-month high of $81,000 before settling near $79,000.
Galaxy Digital noted that Blackrock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust saw its largest retail buy skew in two years. Alex Thorn, Galaxy’s Head of Research, highlighted the 50-week moving average at $82,470 as a key indicator. Historical data shows that closing above this average confirmed the bottom in 11 of 13 bear markets.
A close above $82,500 would signal a reliable bottom rather than a simple bounce. Strive CEO Matt Cole described the upcoming cycle as the strongest ever seen. He cited Bitcoin’s performance against the dollar and gold as evidence of this shift. Despite the record week, the asset struggled to maintain momentum in the days following the close.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for BTC, measured when this story was written up on 28 August 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
Bitcoin is currently trading at $80,249.58, with buy ratios of 41.4% for the last hour and 47.7% for the last four hours. These short-term figures are below the 45.2% buy ratio recorded over the past 24 hours, suggesting that immediate buying pressure is fading. Volume delta data reinforces this trend, showing net selling of $5.4 million in the last hour and $7.2 million over four hours. Over the full day, the market has seen a net outflow of $123.1 million, with cumulative volume delta closing at -$97.6 million. This indicates that sellers are currently dominating the flow, outweighing the buyers who have been active for only 9 of the last 24 hours.
The latest daily buy ratio of 46.7% sits at the 18th percentile of the last 322 days, against a median of 49.2% - weaker buying than most days.
Twenty-four hours later
What BTC did over the 24 hours after the story broke. The market moves for its own reasons; this is what happened, not what the story caused.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for BTC, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
This selling pressure marks a distinct shift from the preceding week, where the average buy ratio was 51.1%. The current 24-hour buy ratio of 45.2% is 5.8 percentage points lower than that weekly average, indicating a cooler market. Volume has also cooled, with today’s spot volume of $1.3 billion sitting at just 0.65 times the weekly average. While the previous week saw net buying across five of seven days, today’s negative volume delta highlights a clear reversal in sentiment. This represents an unusual day for the coin, characterized by lower volume and a failure to sustain the buying dominance seen previously.