Bitcoin weakened for a sixth consecutive day and briefly fell below $63,000, hitting about $62,800, according to a market note jointly published by PANews and BIT. The move marked BTC’s first break of that area since Aug. 3. On the weekly chart, it also lost the 200-week moving average near $64,000.
The report said BTC failed to produce a strong rebound even after back-to-back cooling U.S. CPI and PPI readings, suggesting the market is being capped by more than rate expectations alone. It pointed to fund flows, positioning structure and risk appetite as the factors now weighing on price.
Trendline break puts the $60,000 zone back in focus
Ash Crypto said Bitcoin has lost its daily trendline. He warned that the last time a similar technical break occurred, BTC went on to see a drawdown of about 20%. That comparison has pushed traders back to the question of whether the area around $60,000, or even lower levels, can hold if selling pressure expands.
Benjamin Cowen also flagged seasonality. He said the period from mid-August to mid-October has historically been weak for Bitcoin, with average declines of about 10% to 11% in August and around 8% in September.
Most traders are treating $62,500 as the key support. Some are watching equal lows near $62,200 and a possible downside target at $61,300. On the upside, resistance is clustered in the $64,500 to $65,000 order zone. A break above $65,400 could open a move toward $67,000 to $68,000.
Volatility has collapsed as the market waits for a break
For the past two months, Bitcoin has remained trapped inside a wide convergence range defined by support at $62,500 and resistance between $65,000 and $70,000. Volatility has compressed to an extreme level. BTC’s 30-day price range has shrunk to only 5.6%, one of the narrowest readings on record.
James Check said this kind of very low-volatility setup has historically appeared near the end of bear markets or in the early stage of bull markets. In the current case, though, price is sitting below key moving averages and bulls are short on momentum, leaving the market storing energy for what the report described as an “explosive” directional choice.
Options markets have also been quiet. About $1.29 billion in BTC options are nearing expiry, with max pain at $64,000. Put open interest is concentrated between $60,000 and $62,000, while calls are clustered from $65,000 to $72,000. The largest call concentration sits at $68,000. Daan Crypto Trades said this consolidation should produce a directional breakout by next week at the latest.
BIT’s view in the note was that the market is still constrained in the short term by potential supply from reserve-holding companies such as Strategy. It added that the cycle low may be set by the end of this month or next month, depending on when selling is absorbed and whether ETF demand returns.
Key items on the day’s calendar
- Binance is set to list six USDT-margined TradFi perpetual contracts on Aug. 14, covering names including Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.
- The Russian government will ban crypto mining in Moscow and several other areas starting Aug. 15, with the ban running through the end of 2032.
- Superseed will abandon its self-built Layer 2 and return to the Ethereum mainnet. Users need to bridge assets out before Aug. 15.
- Starknet (STRK) will unlock about 127 million tokens on Aug. 15, worth about $3.2 million.
- Sei (SEI) will unlock about 88.89 million tokens on Aug. 15, worth about $3.7 million.
- Connex (CONX) will unlock about 1.32 million tokens on Aug. 15, worth about $16.85 million.
- Upbit’s 24-hour volume ranking was BTC, BONK, PROM, XRP and ETH.
- Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded -$131 million, while spot Ether ETFs posted +$6.7169 million.
- The biggest gainers among the top 100 tokens by market cap were VELVET, up 32.1%; BTW, up 14.6%; ETHFI, up 13.7%; ATOM, up 9.5%; and MKR, up 6.5%.
U.S. after-hours trade and crypto-linked stocks split
BIT’s after-hours data showed memory names extending gains from the previous session. Micron, Sandisk and the memory ETF DRAM rose 1% to 3%. Reddit jumped more than 12% as it heads for formal inclusion in the S&P 500 before the open on Aug. 18, with expected passive inflows cited as the immediate trigger.
Applied Materials fell more than 5% in after-hours trading after earnings. The note said revenue and guidance both beat expectations, but the market remained concerned about margins and the durability of demand. It also highlighted Workday, Reddit, and Sandisk-related names as premarket stocks to watch.
In the regular session, U.S. equities closed higher after both CPI and PPI cooled. The S&P 500 rose 0.65% to a record closing high, the Nasdaq gained 0.81%, and the Dow added 0.13%. July PPI slowed to 4.7% year over year from 5.5%, while the monthly reading was flat, both better than expected. Money markets quickly pushed the probability of no rate change in September to 68%.
Long-end rates, however, sent a different signal. The 30-year Treasury auction stopped at 5.216%, the highest since 2001. The share taken by indirect bidders fell from 77.7% to about 66.9%, leaving primary dealers to absorb more supply.
Jun, a guest analyst for BIT U.S. stocks, said Thursday’s biggest surprise was not earnings but Workday. The stock rose 17.78% and was briefly halted for volatility after Reuters reported that private equity firm Silver Lake was in talks to acquire the enterprise software company. If a deal is completed, the note said it could become one of the largest software acquisitions on record.
Jun also pointed to an 11.85% drop in Cerebras. The company posted $180 million in revenue, about 7% below market expectations. Even though Cerebras raised its full-year core revenue guidance, investors sold the stock.
Sandisk surged 13.67% after issuing a strong long-term outlook, lifting the broader memory group. In contrast, previously strong optical communication names such as Coherent and Lumentum fell more than 5% to 7% on profit-taking.
Crypto-linked equities rebounded. BIT data showed Coinbase up 3.26%, Robinhood up 4.7%, Strategy up 2.39%, and Circle up 5.75%. Circle has now rebounded about 30% from its Aug. 3 low of $57.8. Mining stocks were weaker as a group: Hut 8 fell 8.62%; MARA, Riot, CleanSpark, Cipher Mining and TeraWulf lost about 5% to 7%; IREN, Bitdeer and Canaan rose 2% to 4%.
The note also said BIT’s U.S. stock trading competition has started. Registered users who meet the activity threshold during the event can share a $30,000 cash prize pool, with up to $6,000 for a single participant. The top three by trading volume can also win an iPhone 17 Pro Max, a DJI drone or Meta AI smart glasses. The competition runs through Aug. 29 and is limited to BIT U.S. stock users who have completed KYC.
Asia markets diverge as Korea snaps a seven-week slide
Cooling U.S. inflation improved risk appetite across Asia-Pacific markets, sending money back into AI and semiconductor names. South Korea’s KOSPI rose 2.41% on Friday to 6977.34, bringing the weekly gain to 11.5% and ending a seven-week losing streak. Japan’s Nikkei 225 moved back above 68,000 and posted its strongest week in nearly two months.
The Korean market’s main driver remained memory. SK Hynix rose 3.26%, and Samsung Electronics and other tech names also advanced. SK Hynix Chairman Chey Tae-won said AI customers’ memory demand has nearly doubled from prior levels and warned that next year could bring the worst memory shortage in history. He also said AI Agent usage could rise 77-fold over the next five years.
Chey added that while Nvidia is SK Hynix’s most important customer, the company also supplies Google, Microsoft and other hyperscale cloud providers, so it is not dependent on one buyer. The report said the market has leaned harder into the view that AI compute expansion is ultimately constrained by HBM supply. U.S. financial commentator Jim Cramer went as far as saying the tech industry has been “grabbed by the throat” by SK Hynix.
Japanese equities were also supported by technology stocks, but currency markets became a separate source of tension. The dollar-yen rate moved back toward 160. Former Japanese currency diplomat Mitsuhiro Furusawa warned that Japan could intervene again at any time and might even coordinate with the United States. He also said the Bank of Japan should accelerate rate hikes, while expectations for a September hike have risen. If the yen triggers policy action near 160, export stocks and overseas capital flows could shift quickly.
Mainland Chinese equities continued to repair, with the Shanghai Composite turning higher in afternoon trade and the ChiNext index rising more than 1%. Hong Kong stocks were more mixed. The Hang Seng Index stayed under pressure, China Gold International jumped more than 15% after strong interim earnings, JD.com fell more than 10%, and the AI application segment sold off further in afternoon trading. Minimax lost more than 10%, Zhipu fell 3.57%, and Robosense and UDI moved lower as well.
What markets are watching next
Several upcoming releases and events were highlighted in the note. U.S. July retail sales are due at 20:30 on Aug. 14. A stronger-than-expected reading could revive the trade that consumer demand remains intact and inflation still has resilience, potentially lifting Treasury yields and pressuring growth stock valuations. A weak number would support bets on a Fed pause, but could also raise concern about slowing growth, helping bonds and defensive sectors while weighing on cyclicals and consumer names.
At 22:00 on Aug. 14, the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index and inflation expectations are due. Traders will focus on one-year and longer-term inflation expectations. If those expectations continue to fall, the “no move in September” trade may gain support. If they rebound, the market could again price in hawkish calls for rate hikes from officials such as Hammack.
On Aug. 17, South Korea’s stock market will be closed for a holiday, and DeepSeek will raise the peak price of its API. The note said the market holiday may reduce short-term liquidity in the Asia tech chain, while the DeepSeek price increase will test how much domestic AI application companies can absorb higher costs and may affect sentiment in the AI application segment.
On Aug. 18, Reddit will officially join the S&P 500. The report said passive buying from index funds may provide short-term technical support for RDDT. After that, the market will test whether the company can keep expanding AI data licensing revenue; if not, the post-inclusion rally could turn into a window for profit-taking.