Bitcoin traded around $78,000 at Monday’s Wall Street open, with price action turning sharply inside a narrow local range as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent addressed bond yields in a CNBC interview.
TradingView data showed BTC/USD up about 1% on the day, though the pair continued to whip around within its existing range.
Bitcoin rebounds after Bessent comments on yields
After slipping into the start of the US trading session, BTC/USD rebounded quickly as Bessent signaled that more intervention in the US bond market could still be on the table. In the CNBC interview, he said he had not yet taken action to support the long end of the yield curve, referring to 10-year and 30-year Treasurys.
「I haven’t bought anything yet,」 Bessent said, adding that he was 「fine」 with yields rebounding after the announcement.
Earlier this month, the Treasury said it would at least double the size of its debt buyback operations to $4 billion from September. Yields fell when that plan was announced, but by Monday the 10-year yield had climbed back to 4.76%, its highest level since January 2025.
The 30-year yield rose to 5.269% on the day, leaving it just 6 basis points below its highest levels since January 2007.
The Kobeissi Letter wrote on X that 「The bond market appears to be completely ignoring the US Treasury.」
Ray Dalio had already expressed doubt that the Treasury would be able to control the bond market even with the new program in place. In discussing a future US debt crisis, he identified both Bitcoin and gold as potential hedges.
In a LinkedIn post, Dalio wrote: 「As general advice, I suggest diversifying well in asset classes and countries that have strong income statements and balance sheets and are not having great internal political and external geopolitical conflicts, underweighting debt assets like bonds, and overweighting gold and a bit of Bitcoin.」
US equities were also lower on the day. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite Index both traded about 0.4% down as market tension linked to new US-Iran strikes filtered through risk assets.
RSI warning appears ahead of the monthly close
Heading into the August monthly candle close, BTC/USD continued to hold its 50-week exponential moving average, or EMA, at $77,269 as support.
Cointelegraph had previously described that level as an important line in the sand for bulls. Month-to-date gains in Bitcoin were nearing 25%, putting the asset on track for its best August performance since 2017.
Even so, trader and analyst Rekt Capital warned that a hidden bearish divergence was emerging on the daily timeframe between price and the relative strength index, or RSI. Weekly RSI signals remained bullish, but he said the latest daily readings pointed to weakening momentum.
He wrote on X: 「if the Daily RSI continues to make Lower Highs (blue), that’ll contribute to mounting weakness here.」
On Monday, the daily RSI stood at 70.7, which kept it in overbought territory.