Bitcoin staged a sharp run-up over the past week, climbing for five straight days from below $63,000 to nearly $80,000 before meeting clear resistance near $79,500. After that rejection, the price slipped back and traded around the $76,000 area.
Analyst account darlene.net wrote on Aug. 22, 「Bitcoin got rejected at $79,500. We almost touched $80,000. There are a lot of sell orders sitting there, but the market will slowly chew through them and keep pushing higher.」 That view captures the central question for bulls right now: whether steady buying can absorb the overhead supply.
Flows into exchange-traded funds offered a more direct sign of support. Analyst Ted Pillows said the same day, 「ETFs bought $1.92 billion worth of Bitcoin this week. That is the largest weekly inflow since October 2025.」 Data from Farside Investors showed weekly inflows peaked at $606 million on Thursday, including $503 million that went into BlackRock’s IBIT alone. Concentrated institutional demand became one of the firmest supports behind the rebound.
BlackRock buying drew immediate attention
Institutional money did not appear to be waiting on the sidelines. The account @nikonchain posted, 「BlackRock clients accumulated more than $500 million worth of Bitcoin in just one day.」 The figure stood out even more against net outflows of $385 million seen across several trading days in mid-August. In that context, sentiment turned quickly, with the market taking the move as a sign that institutions were not standing back.
Hashdex co-founder Bruno Caratori explained the broader setup on the On The Margin podcast. 「Asset managers and ETF issuers have been around for a long time. People in the U.S. are very familiar with names like Fidelity, Vanguard, BlackRock, and others.」 In his view, the demand from traditional financial institutions to allocate to Bitcoin is not a passing development but part of a longer-running trend.
The account @IgnacioAFCMO added more detailed fund-flow figures: 「Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $517.19 million in inflows on Wednesday, the biggest single-day inflow in three and a half months. Eight of the 12 ETFs posted positive inflows, and BlackRock IBIT alone contributed $284.7 million.」 The inflow arrived just three days after a short squeeze, at a time when Anthony Scaramucci was publicly pointing to $100,000. @IgnacioAFCMO wrote, 「Real money stepped in right when shorts were being forced out. Timing like that is rarely accidental.」
$75,000 is now the level traders are watching
The push toward $80,000 was not smooth. Data tracked by Alerting.Guru showed that as Bitcoin dropped quickly from $79,500 to about $77,000, roughly $550 million in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated within 60 minutes. Total liquidations over 24 hours reached $1.8 billion and affected more than 286,000 traders.
Darlene.net later said, 「This is already the third wave of major liquidations.」 The flush in highly leveraged long positions added to the violence of the move and made price action much more unstable in the short term.
Swing-trading account CRYPTID.Crypto took a different view of the pullback. 「There has already been some profit-taking, which is a good thing. We may see accumulation before the next leg higher.」 Earlier, Polymarket traders had assigned an 80% probability to Bitcoin reaching $80,000, and that expectation did not disappear after the retreat. The same account added, 「Support is now at $75,000.」 That level has become a key reference point for traders watching the next move.
Some traders are refusing to chase near $79,000
As retail enthusiasm picked up, some veteran traders turned more cautious. The anonymous trader Simba wrote, 「Everyone is celebrating $79,000. I’m doing the exact opposite.」 He pushed back against some retail investors targeting $126,000 and added, 「Once retail starts piling in again, I pay attention. I’m not bearish on Bitcoin long term. I just don’t want to be exit liquidity at $79,000.」 He followed that with another line: 「Let everyone else FOMO in. I’ll wait for real blood before adding more longs.」
The comments showed a split in positioning. Long-term conviction may still be intact, but that does not mean every participant is willing to keep buying into a hot market after a vertical move.
Transform Group founder Michael Terpin offered a longer-horizon read on the On The Margin podcast. 「They tend to buy late. Usually they come back about four to six weeks after the bottom because they’re still hoping for a lower price and they don’t want to get dumped on.」 His point was that larger buyers often lag fast-moving market sentiment, which helps explain why some institutions may still be waiting.
Managers say Bitcoin holdings remain elevated
Terpin also described the psychology of investors who bought at higher levels. 「They don’t want to be exit liquidity for newbies panic buying at the top.」 He illustrated that mindset with a hypothetical reaction during a decline: 「I’d be happy at $80,000, then it suddenly drops to $60,000 and bounces to $70,000. Then they think, my God, I got out at $70,000, thank God, I only lost 30%.」 That kind of back-and-forth around major round-number levels can intensify volatility.
Caratori provided another data point when discussing his own fund. 「At the peak in price, our assets under management were close to $1.7 billion. Of course AUM moves with price.」 But he said the more important measure was the amount of Bitcoin held: 「On a Bitcoin-denominated basis, our AUM is still at an all-time high.」 In other words, even if dollar-based valuations fluctuate, the number of Bitcoin held by institutions has not declined.
Short positions above $80,000 remain part of the setup
Darlene.net returned to the upside scenario with one more point: 「There are still billions of dollars in short positions above $80,000 waiting to be liquidated.」 If ETF demand keeps absorbing the sell wall near $79,500, forced covering from those short positions could become a major driver of the next move higher.
For now, the market sits in the middle of several competing forces. BlackRock and other large firms continue to bring in fresh buying, while the $79,500 to $80,000 zone is still acting as resistance. Profit-taking has started to appear, yet long-term allocation demand from institutions has not gone away. Whether new money can fully clear the overhead supply is shaping up as the main variable for Bitcoin’s next stage.