Bitcoin shot up more than 20% this past week. It touched $81,255 at one point, then dropped back to $78,026 today, that’s down about 1% in the last day. The whole crypto market dipped about the same amount.
What happened? People took profits after that big 28% run in August. Then leveraged bets got crushed, over $300 million in long positions got wiped out when the price turned.
Yet despite the BTC price pushing to a three-month high, traders are not showing the level of excitement you would expect from a rally this strong.
What you'll learn 👉
Bitcoin Price Rises as Crowd Sentiment Turns Negative
Santiment’s numbers show why some traders aren’t buying the hype. Bitcoin went from $62,800 on August 16 to $78,900 on August 26, up 25% in ten days. That’s the best ten-day run we’ve seen all year.
But here’s the weird thing. Sentiment turned sour right as prices peaked. On August 26, the weighted sentiment score dipped to -0.023. That’s the first time it went negative since this whole rally started.
For comparison, the seven-day average sat at +0.009. Just a day earlier, on August 25, it had been +0.020. So people got more pessimistic even as Bitcoin kept climbing.
That doesn’t usually happen. Its strongest reading during the move was +0.054 on August 19, the day news broke that the U.S. Treasury would double the size of some long-duration bond buybacks.
Normally, a 25% Bitcoin price rally would bring much stronger optimism across crypto social media. That has not happened here. Price has climbed, but sentiment has remained restrained.
What the Santiment BTC Chart Shows
The chart makes this disconnect clear. The green line tracks the Bitcoin price, moving from roughly $58,000-$60,000 in late July toward $79,000 by August 26. The biggest upward move came after August 19, with BTC breaking higher and eventually reaching above $80,000.
BTC is up about 25% in ten days and sitting near its highs. The crowd still has not bought it.
— Santiment Intelligence (@SantimentData) August 26, 2026
📈 Price went from about $62,800 on Aug 16 to about $78,900 on Aug 26, the strongest ten-day stretch of the year.
🪫 Weighted sentiment turned negative again today, at about -0.023,… pic.twitter.com/S9IFevczKY
The bars underneath track weighted sentiment. Green bars represent positive sentiment and red bars represent negative sentiment.
The largest positive reading appears around August 19 at +0.054. From there, sentiment weakened even as the Bitcoin price continued higher. By August 26, the reading had fallen to -0.023.
That is the key point behind Santiment’s analysis: BTC buyers pushed the price higher, but the broader crowd did not become euphoric.
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ETF Flows Are Becoming More Important for Bitcoin
Aixbt takes the argument further. Its view is that future BTC upside depends more on repeat spot Bitcoin ETF inflows than on the Treasury’s buyback program.
further BTC upside depends more on repeat ETF flows than Treasury's buyback cap. treasury doubled long-bond buyback caps and yields fell, spot Bitcoin ETFs drew $517m, then BTC short sellers had to cover $1.67b as BTC broke $75k. long yields recovered much of the drop by then.
— aixbt (@aixbt_agent) August 26, 2026
The Treasury announcement helped create a better macro backdrop for risk assets, but part of Bitcoin’s move also came from forced positioning. As the BTC price broke above $75,000, short sellers were forced to close positions, with aixbt putting those short liquidations at $1.67 billion.
That type of buying cannot continue indefinitely. Once short sellers are cleared out, the market needs fresh buyers to keep the Bitcoin price moving higher. ETF flows provide one way to measure that demand.
Bitcoin ETF Demand Reaches a Key Test
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $314.37 million on August 25, extending their positive-flow streak to seven trading days. August inflows have now reached $3.03 billion, only $390 million below the record set in October 2025.
That gives the Bitcoin price a stronger fundamental source of demand than short covering alone. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for about $284.4 million of the August 25 inflow, or roughly 90.5% of the day’s total Bitcoin ETF inflows.
BlackRock has also lowered the minimum for in-kind IBIT creations and redemptions from $25 million to $1 million. The mechanism allows eligible investors to exchange Bitcoin directly for ETF shares instead of selling BTC for cash first.
That does not guarantee additional buying, but it makes the structure accessible to a wider pool of eligible institutional investors.
Where Could the Bitcoin Price Go Next?
The big thing to watch is Jackson Hole on August 28. That’s when Fed Chair Kevin Warsh takes the stage. Everyone will hang on his words about inflation, rates, and where the economy is headed.
If he sounds optimistic, the Bitcoin price could push past $82,800. And if that level holds as new support, we could see $90,000 next, then $98,300. From where it sits now around $79,180, that’s about 24% higher.
But if Warsh pours cold water on things and $82,800 rejects the price, Bitcoin could fall back toward $78,000. If that floor holds, we might see it bounce between $76,000 and $82,800 for a bit, until something else moves the needle.
The bearish case would involve a hawkish message alongside hotter inflation data. A break below the $74,000-$75,000 zone could expose $62,200, with $59,000 becoming possible if that support fails.
For now, the Bitcoin price has the ETF flows needed to keep the rally alive. The bigger question is whether those buyers can take over once the forced buying from short liquidations fades.
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