Bitcoin broke through $80,000 last week, climbing from around $64,000 in just four sessions. The move started the day after the SEC published its Regulation Crypto Assets proposal, and picked up steam when the US Treasury said it would double the size of its long-end liquidity support buyback operations. By the time the week closed, US spot Bitcoin ETFs had taken in $1.92 billion over five days, their best stretch of 2026.
The regulators and the Treasury lined up
The SEC's proposal, released the day before the rally, laid out a new framework for crypto assets. It wasn't a law yet, but the market took it as a signal that the agency was finally moving toward rules, not just enforcement. A day later, the Treasury said it would increase the maximum size of its buyback operations from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation, covering 10-20 and 20-30 year securities from 9 September through 4 November. That's the kind of liquidity injection that tends to lift risk assets, and crypto followed.
ETF money flowed in both directions
Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $1.92 billion over the five sessions to 21 August, their best week of 2026 and the largest since October 2025, per SoSoValue. Ethereum funds added another $697.2 million, bringing the combined total to $2.6 billion. Both saw inflows all five days, reversing a $392 million outflow the week before. The reversal matters because Bitcoin ETFs still carry about $2.9 billion of net outflows for the year—the rally hasn't yet erased the damage from earlier months.
What the charts say now
Bitcoin cleared its 200-day moving average, near $69,000, for the first time in nine months. That's a technical milestone. But the bigger pattern is the weekly bullish divergence that formed through the first half of 2026: price made lower lows while the Relative Strength Index made higher lows, similar to late 2022 before the bear market bottom. The daily RSI moved from the low 40s to above 80 within a week, peaking near 90—a mirror of December 2022 to mid-January 2023. Those are the kinds of moves that tend to scare the margin traders.
Leverage is clearing, not reloading
Open interest in Bitcoin futures fell 2.65% on Sunday, with funding near the 0.01% baseline, according to CoinGlass. That suggests the rally hasn't fueled a fresh pile of leverage—it's actually been clawing back. Ecoinometrics' flow model puts Bitcoin in a supported range of roughly $67,000 to $78,000, with fair value near $72,000, leaving the price at the top of what flows alone might justify. The weekly divergence remains valid as long as the price holds above the low that formed it. That's the line to watch in the coming days.
