Fans of “The Voice UK” reacted with frustration Saturday night after the ITV singing competition returned for a new series without its traditional opening coaches’ performance, a staple of the show’s format that had appeared at the start of every previous season for 15 years.

The show returned Saturday with will.i.am, Sir Tom Jones, and McFly members Danny Jones and Tom Fletcher back in their coaching chairs, joined for the first time by Destiny’s Child singer Kelly Rowland as the newest addition to the panel. While fans expressed excitement at seeing Rowland take her place in the show’s signature spinning red chair, many were disappointed that her debut did not include participation in the coaches’ traditional group performance, which typically opens each new series.

Instead of the customary performance, Saturday’s episode simply introduced the coaches directly to the audience without the accompanying musical number. The change quickly drew criticism from longtime viewers on social media. One fan wrote on X, “They got Kelly Rowland on the panel and for the first time in 15 years DIDN’T open the series with a coaches performance?! Fire the producers #TheVoiceUK.” Another viewer echoed the frustration more bluntly, writing, “No coach performance?!? wtf #TheVoiceUK.” A third fan questioned whether the segment had simply been left out of production entirely, tweeting, “Did they not film a coaches performance this year or what.”

Beyond the absent tradition and Rowland’s arrival as a new coach, Saturday’s premiere also introduced a new format twist to the show: a “rewind button.” The new feature gives each coach the opportunity to offer a singer a second chance to turn their chair, even if that coach did not initially turn around during the contestant’s original performance.

Coach Danny Jones offered an enthusiastic endorsement of the new mechanic following its debut. “The Rewind Button is a total game-changer!” Jones said. “It’s brilliant because it gives that extra bit of power to right a wrong.”

Rowland’s arrival on the panel marks a significant casting change for the British edition of the singing competition, bringing a globally recognized music star with decades of experience in the industry to the show’s coaching lineup for the first time. Her introduction alongside returning coaches will.i.am, Tom Jones, Danny Jones and Tom Fletcher rounds out a panel blending established “Voice UK” veterans with a high-profile new addition, even as that debut came without the customary fanfare of a joint opening performance that fans had come to expect from the format.

“The Voice UK” has run for multiple seasons on ITV, building a loyal fan base around its signature blind-audition format, in which coaches select contestants based solely on their vocal performances before seeing them, followed by a competitive process in which coaches mentor and battle for their chosen singers through the remainder of the series. The coaches’ opening performance had become an established tradition within that broader format, typically used to introduce each season’s panel with a collaborative musical number before the blind auditions themselves get underway.

The show’s producers have not publicly addressed the reason behind the absence of the traditional opening performance during Saturday’s premiere, leaving fans largely to speculate about whether the segment was intentionally cut from this year’s format, simply not filmed, or held back for a later broadcast. As of this report, ITV had not issued a statement clarifying the decision or indicating whether the coaches’ performance might still appear in some form later in the current series.

Saturday’s episode continues to air as part of “The Voice UK’s” regular Saturday night broadcast slot on ITV1, with episodes also made available for streaming through the network’s ITVX platform. The series has continued to draw a dedicated weekly audience throughout its run, with fan reaction to individual episodes, casting changes and format tweaks frequently generating significant discussion on social media in the hours following each broadcast, a pattern reflected in Saturday’s swift and pointed criticism over the missing coaches’ performance.

The introduction of Rowland to the panel adds to a broader pattern of coaching lineup changes the British version of “The Voice” has undergone throughout its run, with the show periodically refreshing its panel to maintain audience interest and bring new perspectives to the competition. Previous coaches on the UK edition have included a rotating cast of prominent musicians and personalities over the years, with the current lineup of will.i.am, Tom Jones, Danny Jones, Tom Fletcher and now Rowland representing the newest configuration heading into the current series.

With the season’s blind auditions now officially underway following Saturday’s premiere, attention is likely to shift toward how Rowland’s coaching style and song selections compare with her fellow panelists as the competition progresses, alongside continued fan reaction to the newly introduced rewind button mechanic, which offers coaches a fresh strategic tool for securing talented contestants they may have initially missed during the standard blind audition process. Whether the traditionally expected coaches’ opening performance returns in some capacity later in the season remains unclear, though Saturday’s strong fan reaction suggests the missing tradition is likely to remain a talking point among viewers as the series continues.

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Nvidia earnings put the AI trade back in focus. (0:33) Kevin Warsh heads to Jackson Hole as bond vigilantes stir. (1:32) Canada hits back with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports. (2:33)

The following is an abridged transcript:

The summer doldrums disappear with a huge week ahead for stocks and bonds.

Nvidia (NVDA) stars Wednesday with what has become the biggest earnings event on Wall Street. On Friday, Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh gives the keynote address at the Jackson Hole Symposium at a time when bond vigilantes are stirring.

With Nvidia, investors will be looking for updates on AI infrastructure demand, product ramp timing, China exposure and the economics of the chipmaker’s expanding financing partnerships. Options traders are pricing in a roughly 6% move in Nvidia shares following the report.

Seeking Alpha analyst Mott Capital said investors and traders may be left with “the post-Nvidia earnings hangover” again if the numbers are good but not spectacular.

“A decline could be sharp, pushing the stock down by as much as 11% to an important area of technical and options-related support at $190, while upside seems limited,” they said.

The results could reverberate across the semiconductor and AI complex. Marvell Technology (MRVL), Micron (MU), Arm (ARM) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) have shown some of the closest trading correlations with Nvidia following earnings.

Here’s how the rest of the earnings calendar shapes up:

PDD Holdings (PDD) and XPeng (XPEV) report Monday.

Intuit (INTU) reports Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Nvidia is joined by CrowdStrike (CRWD), Salesforce (CRM), HP Inc. (HPQ) and Okta (OKTA).

Marvell (MRVL) and Ulta Beauty (ULTA) report Thursday.

Looking to Jackson Hole, Warsh will speak at 10 a.m. ET Friday.

At his last press conference, Warsh indicated that higher Treasury yields were doing the job of tightening financial conditions for the Fed. But since then, higher yields have spooked the White House, leading Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to boost buybacks of longer-dated debt in an attempt to tamp down rates.

Seeking Alpha analyst Geneva Investor says “the two men want opposite things in the long end.”

“Bessent wants the 10-year and 30-year lower, and has said so repeatedly,” they said. “Warsh wants a smaller Fed footprint concentrated at the front end of the yield curve, which mechanically raises the long end.”

“Bessent wants a larger FIMA facility, which expands the balance sheet. Warsh wants the $6.7T balance sheet to come down.”

Seeking Alpha analyst Damir Tokic said Warsh will be under the spotlight to address the current bond market selloff, “and he will restate that real rates are rising, while inflation expectations remain anchored, so that will be a dovish message.”

“However, with this dovish message, the nominal long-term rates will continue to rise, steepening the yield curve,” he added.

In the news this weekend, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his country will impose retaliatory tariffs on a wide range of U.S. imports starting Sept. 8 in response to the Trump administration’s new 50% tariffs on Canadian goods.

His remarks came after weeks of trade negotiations between the two sides collapsed late Friday. The new U.S. tariffs, which could impact roughly $20B worth of Canadian exports, took effect immediately.

Meanwhile, President Trump posted on Truth Social that Canada has “charged our great farmers, for many years, massive amounts of Tariffs.”

He added that “Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one!!!”

And for income investors, 3M (MMM) goes ex-dividend Monday, paying out on Sept. 11.

Hyatt (H) goes ex-dividend Thursday, with a Sept. 10 payout date.

T-Mobile (TMUS) and eBay (EBAY) go ex-dividend Friday. T-Mobile pays out on Sept. 10 and eBay on Sept. 11.

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Samsung is preparing what could be one of its most significant flagship redesigns in years with the Galaxy S27 Ultra, according to a growing wave of leaks pointing toward a departure from the phone’s familiar camera layout, a new 2-nanometer processor, and an expanded four-device lineup that would introduce a new Galaxy S27 Pro model when the series launches in early 2027.

According to AnalyticsInsight, recent leaks suggest Samsung plans to move away from the separate camera rings that have defined recent Galaxy Ultra models, replacing them with a single, unified camera island intended to give the phone a cleaner overall appearance. Additional reported changes include a flat titanium frame, thinner display borders, IP68 water and dust resistance, and a built-in S Pen, continuing one of the signature features that has long distinguished the Ultra tier from the rest of Samsung’s flagship lineup.

Android Central reported that tipster Anthony, who posts under the handle @TheGalox_ on the social platform X, shared a detailed specification list in late July pointing to several major hardware upgrades for the device. According to that leak, the Galaxy S27 Ultra is expected to feature a 6.9-inch QHD+ “Privacy Display,” a screen technology designed to limit visibility of sensitive content from onlookers at off-center viewing angles, alongside a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro for Galaxy processor and either 12 gigabytes or 16 gigabytes of RAM. The same leak pointed to a substantial battery upgrade, with the device reportedly moving to a 5,700 milliamp-hour silicon-carbon battery, a significant jump from previous generations that could deliver meaningfully longer endurance for heavy users. On the camera front, the leak described a 200-megapixel main sensor, a 50-megapixel ultrawide lens, and both a 50-megapixel 5x telephoto lens and a second telephoto camera, alongside an upgraded 16-megapixel front-facing selfie camera featuring optical image stabilization for steadier video and improved low-light performance.

BigGo Finance offered further detail on Samsung’s broader strategic shift for the 2027 lineup, reporting that leaks point to a new four-tier product structure that would insert the Galaxy S27 Pro between the existing Plus and Ultra models. According to that report, both the Ultra and the new Pro model are expected to use Qualcomm’s custom Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro for Galaxy chip, built on a 2-nanometer manufacturing process, while the standard base models are expected to use a mix of Samsung’s own Exynos 2700 chip and Snapdragon processors depending on region. BigGo Finance also reported that the Ultra’s camera system is being streamlined into a triple-lens array centered around the 200-megapixel main sensor and a 50-megapixel periscope telephoto lens, while higher-tier models are expected to adopt silicon-carbon battery technology pushing capacities beyond 5,500 milliamp-hours. Estimated pricing for the lineup, according to the same report, is expected to range from roughly $799 for the base model up to approximately $1,299 for the Ultra, with the new Pro model expected to sit between $999 and $1,099.

Tech Advisor’s coverage of the emerging Galaxy S27 Pro provided additional specification detail, reporting that the new model is expected to feature a 6.47-inch AMOLED display, positioning it between the anticipated 6.3-inch Galaxy S27 and the 6.7-inch Galaxy S27 Plus. According to that report, the Galaxy S27 Ultra is expected to carry a 5,700 to 5,800 milliamp-hour battery, while the more compact Galaxy S27 Pro is rumored to feature a 5,200 milliamp-hour cell, a capacity that would already exceed the current Galaxy S26 Ultra’s battery. Tech Advisor also noted that Samsung’s traditional split between Exynos and Snapdragon chipsets is expected to continue across the lineup, with Exynos typically reserved for the base and Plus models in most global markets while Snapdragon powers the Ultra, except in the United States, where Snapdragon has historically been used across the entire lineup.

Memory and storage configurations for the Galaxy S27 Ultra have shifted in recent leaks. AndroidHeadlines reported that Samsung was initially rumored to adopt newer LPDDR6 RAM and UFS 5.0 storage for the device, but more recent leaks suggest the company will instead stick with LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 or UFS 4.1 storage, a decision that AnalyticsInsight attributed largely to rising component costs across the broader semiconductor supply chain. Storage options are expected to include 256 gigabytes, 512 gigabytes and 1 terabyte configurations, with RAM starting at 12 gigabytes and a possible 16-gigabyte option available on higher-end configurations.

GSMArena’s reporting offered insight into the internal codenames Samsung is reportedly using for the 2027 lineup, describing the four devices as NM1, NM2, NM3 and NM4, with “NM” believed to stand for “new miracle” or “next miracle.” Under that naming scheme, NM1 corresponds to the base Galaxy S27, NM2 to the Galaxy S27 Plus, NM3 to the newly introduced Galaxy S27 Pro, and NM4 to the Galaxy S27 Ultra. According to the same report, Samsung is reportedly testing a new 50-megapixel main camera sensor supplied by Sony for use in the base Galaxy S27 and Galaxy S27 Plus models, while confirming that both the Pro and Ultra tiers will retain a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera.

Not every camera-related rumor surrounding the Galaxy S27 Ultra has pointed in the same direction, however. Notebookcheck reported that while earlier leaks had suggested Samsung might adopt Sony’s newly released 200-megapixel LYT-901 sensor for the device’s main camera, more recent commentary from prominent leaker Ice Universe indicated Samsung currently has no plans to adopt that specific sensor for its next-generation flagship lineup, leaving some uncertainty around the exact camera hardware Samsung will ultimately settle on ahead of the phone’s official unveiling. Separately, GSMArena reported that Samsung is developing its own new 200-megapixel ISOCELL sensor internally, reportedly codenamed HPA, featuring a large 1/1.12-inch sensor format and support for LOFIC technology, a sensor that tipster Digital Chat Station suggested could plausibly find its way into the Galaxy S27 Ultra despite no explicit confirmation tying the two together.

The Galaxy S27 Ultra is widely expected to officially launch during the first quarter of 2027, consistent with Samsung’s typical early-year release pattern for its flagship Galaxy S series, according to multiple outlets tracking the device’s development. As with any smartphone still many months away from an official unveiling, the specific hardware, pricing and design details outlined across these various leaks remain unconfirmed by Samsung and subject to change as the company finalizes its plans ahead of the eventual launch event. Given the volume and consistency of leaks emerging well over a year before the device’s expected release, however, industry observers continue to treat the broader strokes of the reported redesign, including the shift toward a unified camera module, the introduction of a new Pro tier, and the move to a 2-nanometer processor, as increasingly likely elements of Samsung’s next major flagship smartphone lineup.

Sara Davies has joined Not On The High Street as a non-executive director and taken a stake in the Bristol-based online marketplace, as its new private equity owners attempt to steer the business back to growth.

The appointment comes just over six months after Not On The High Street was bought by Executive Equity Partners (EEP), a German investor based in Munich. EEP styles itself as a specialist in “companies facing transformation and challenges that current shareholders can no longer manage alone”.

Davies, who appeared on the BBC business series Dragons’ Den between 2019 and 2025, will mentor the small business owners who sell their goods on the platform, as well as advising on the company’s strategy more broadly.

“We’ve got to drive this forward,” she said. “There is a real sentiment and movement among consumers at the moment of people wanting to buy local. They want to support small businesses. They want to support cottage industries and they want to buy personalised gifts.”

She said she had made a board seat and an equity stake a condition of getting involved. “I said I would only get involved if I’m sitting on the board; if I’ve got a voice, not only at the top table, but in the firm, and I’m an owner in this business. [Mentoring] absolutely plays into the commercial aspirations of the business, because… if we make these people more successful, the whole company grows.”

Davies made her name as the founder of Crafter’s Companion, which she started as a university student in 2005. She was awarded an MBE for services to the economy in 2016 and, in 2019, became the youngest ever female investor to join Dragons’ Den.

Transaction values have more than halved

Founded in 2006 by Sophie Cornish and Holly Tucker, Not On The High Street is widely considered to have pioneered the online marketplace model in Britain by allowing small businesses and creatives to sell their wares widely. Legions of shoppers locked at home during the pandemic spent millions of pounds on personalised gifts and trinkets made by independent creators across the country.

After that boom, however, the company suffered years of declining sales under its former owners Great Hill Partners, an American investment fund.

Accounts filed at Companies House show the total value of transactions on the platform has more than halved since the end of the pandemic, dropping from £185 million in 2022 to £84 million in the year to 31 March 2025. It is understood that total transaction value has since fallen to £72 million.

Alongside shaky consumer confidence and softer retail spending, the business has faced stiff competition from larger rivals, including huge Chinese online marketplaces such as Temu, which sell cheaper, mass-produced goods. It has been forced to shed dozens of jobs in recent years, cutting 70 staff in 2024 and a further 25 in 2025, accounts show.

Purge of drop-shipped listings

Pascal Schuster, who became chief executive when the deal completed in January, said the company had been trying to fight the wrong battle.

“I think what Not On The High Street has historically tried to do is compete with Alibaba, Temu, all of these very cheap gifting moments,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is come back to a real Not On The High Street as it should be. What we’ve been doing… is restructuring the company, rebuilding most of the infrastructure. We feel confident now that at the beginning of next year we will be in a position to grow again.”

As part of the turnaround, Schuster said Not On The High Street had embarked on a purge of products sold via drop-shipping, where sellers import cheap products into Britain without owning any stock themselves, as well as AI-generated product listings.

“We’ve had a very, very hard look at a product catalogue. And we have cleared it of everything that is even remotely in doubt of being drop-shipped without being at least personalised in the UK,” he said. “We don’t want to compete with Shein and Temu. It’s not where we should be.”

He added that he expected total transactions to be flat for the current financial year.

Plans for young entrepreneurs

Davies and Schuster also plan to launch an initiative designed to tackle burgeoning youth unemployment by providing training and development opportunities for young entrepreneurs.

Official figures underline the scale of the problem. An estimated 1,012,000 young people aged 16 to 24 in the UK were not in education, employment or training in the first three months of 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics, a rate of 13.5 per cent and an increase of 89,000 on the same period a year earlier.

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.

A video game preservation community is organizing a one-week boycott of PlayStation, urging players to log out of the PlayStation Network and avoid using their consoles entirely from Aug. 23 through Aug. 30, in protest of Sony’s decision to end physical game disc production by 2028.

The protest, dubbed the “PSBlackout,” was organized by DoesItPlay, a community focused on video game preservation, along with other content creators who joined the call to action. According to a post shared on the social platform Bluesky, the group is asking players to commit to “no logins, no play sessions, no purchases on any of Sony’s platforms” for the full week. “Sony wants to abandon fans? Let’s give them a small taste of their own medicine! Together with other creators we call for a 1 week #PSBlackout in August,” the group wrote in its announcement.

The protest stems from Sony’s broader shift toward all-digital game distribution, a strategy the company has continued to reinforce even amid growing public backlash. According to Tom’s Hardware, Sony has already officially confirmed it will end production of new physical game discs entirely by 2028, a decision that has generated significant pushback within the gaming community. That opposition has taken multiple forms beyond the current planned blackout; a petition opposing Sony’s move away from physical media has continued gathering signatures, approaching 200,000 as backlash to the decision has grown, according to related coverage. Sony’s chief financial officer has separately reaffirmed the company’s commitment to the shift, stating that the company plans to “cautiously move this forward” despite the continued criticism.

Despite the organized effort behind the blackout, many observers, including some within the gaming community itself, have expressed skepticism that the protest will meaningfully affect Sony’s plans. Much of that doubt centers on the specific timing chosen for the boycott. The final week of August is considered a relatively quiet period for the gaming industry, with no major PlayStation-related launches or events scheduled during that window. Complicating matters further, the same week overlaps directly with Gamescom, one of the gaming industry’s largest annual conventions, meaning many of the most dedicated and vocal gamers who might otherwise participate in a digital boycott are likely to be traveling and attending the event in person rather than staying home and logging out of their consoles.

Some commenters responding to DoesItPlay’s original post argued that a boycott with a predetermined end date carries limited practical leverage, since Sony can simply wait out the designated protest window without making any meaningful concessions. Several suggested more aggressive alternative actions instead, including a mass, extended cancellation of PlayStation Network subscriptions lasting several months, or coordinated mass refund requests for pre-ordered digital games, arguing that such sustained financial pressure would carry more weight than a temporary, time-limited blackout.

Beyond the organized blackout campaign, other members of the gaming community have expressed their frustration with Sony’s digital-first direction through more disruptive means. According to Tom’s Hardware, a leaker operating under the name Cyberleek released gameplay footage and a full map from an unreleased game codenamed Leonidas, timed roughly a week ahead of an extended look trailer for the highly anticipated title “GTA VI” that had been scheduled to premiere on Netflix. Take-Two Interactive, the publisher behind the game, has reportedly begun working to identify the individual responsible for the leaks, particularly given indications that the leaker appears to possess a fully functional build of the game itself. While Cyberleek’s leaks were not explicitly tied to Sony’s physical media decision, the leaker separately voiced opposition to the broader practice of offering pre-orders for digital-only game copies, threatening to continue releasing additional leaked content until the publisher issues a public apology alongside what the leaker described as “a concrete commitment to be better.”

The broader shift away from physical game media reflects a wider trend across the video game industry, as digital storefronts including Steam and the Epic Games Store have grown increasingly dominant over the past decade. However, that shift has also drawn renewed attention to a persistent point of confusion among consumers: purchasing a digital game through most major platforms does not actually grant full ownership of that game in the traditional sense. Tom’s Hardware noted that Steam was required to explicitly clarify this distinction on its checkout page in 2024, following broader consumer confusion and criticism regarding the actual rights digital buyers receive when completing a purchase.

Among major digital distributors, GOG remains a notable exception to that industrywide pattern. According to the platform’s own stated policy, cited by Tom’s Hardware, “a purchase of a digital content on GOG grants you its Offline Installers, which cannot be taken away from you,” a stance that has positioned the platform as an alternative for gamers specifically seeking a greater degree of permanent ownership over their digital purchases. Subscription services such as PC Game Pass, by contrast, have leaned further into the opposite model, offering short-term, convenience-focused access that allows players to experience a game temporarily without the expectation of retaining permanent access once their subscription lapses or they lose interest.

Industry observers have suggested that companies including Sony are primarily responding to broader market preferences that increasingly favor digital game purchases over physical media, a trend that has likely reinforced the company’s decision to formally discontinue physical disc production. Some consumer advocates have suggested that one of the more direct ways gamers can push back against this industrywide shift is by continuing to purchase physical game discs from retailers whenever such options remain available, rather than defaulting to digital downloads, framing sustained consumer purchasing behavior as a potentially more effective long-term counterweight to the industry’s continued movement toward all-digital distribution than a short-term, symbolic blackout alone.

Bitcoin has staged a sharp recovery in recent weeks, climbing back above $77,000 after a brutal first half of 2026 that saw the cryptocurrency shed more than half its value from its October 2025 peak. But whether that rally can be sustained through the fall remains one of the most contested questions in financial markets, with professional forecasters offering sharply divergent views on where the price heads over the next three months.

Bitcoin started 2026 trading above $93,000, according to CoinGecko, before entering a prolonged downturn that pushed the cryptocurrency to a 21-month low near $58,000 by late June, a decline of more than half from its all-time high. CoinGecko attributed much of that damage to two specific forces: a cautious Federal Reserve and sustained outflows from spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, with June alone recording roughly $4 billion in ETF outflows, the worst monthly outflow figure on record for those products. Bitcoin finished the first half of the year down nearly 33%, a particularly stark divergence given that the Nasdaq 100 posted double-digit gains over the same stretch, evidence several analysts pointed to as confirmation that the downturn was a crypto-specific unwind rather than a broader risk-off move across financial markets.

Since that summer low, however, bitcoin has recovered meaningfully, driven most recently by a sharp five-day rally tied to the U.S. Treasury Department’s decision to expand its buybacks of long-dated government debt, along with renewed optimism around pending crypto-friendly legislation in Congress. That rally pushed bitcoin above $77,000 as of late August, its highest level since early June.

Institutional forecasts for where bitcoin heads from here span an unusually wide range. According to CoinGecko’s compilation of 2026 predictions, institutional targets now stretch from as low as $38,000 to as high as $250,000, reflecting deep disagreement even among professional analysts covering the same asset. On the bearish end, NYDIG has floated a scenario in which bitcoin bottoms near $38,000 to $39,000 by October, while Citigroup’s own bear case sits at $53,000, a level notably below the $60,000 to $75,000 consolidation range that had been considered the cautious view earlier in the year, a range bitcoin has already traded through in both directions.

Standard Chartered’s own forecast illustrates how dramatically institutional targets have shifted over the course of 2026. According to Phemex, the bank revised its year-end target downward three separate times, moving from $300,000 to $150,000 and then to $100,000 in successive cuts, changes the outlet characterized as reflecting genuine near-term deterioration in market conditions rather than any shift in the bank’s underlying long-term thesis on bitcoin adoption.

Crypto analyst Aralez, whose monthly price projections have circulated widely throughout 2026, has offered one of the more detailed month-by-month frameworks for the coming quarter. According to TradingView, Aralez’s forecast anticipates a market bottom occurring around October, potentially near $46,000, before a recovery phase begins that could carry bitcoin back above $85,000 by November and toward the $100,000 psychological level by December, representing a scenario in which the current three-month window could ultimately deliver both a further decline and a subsequent sharp recovery rather than steady, uninterrupted gains. A separate, earlier version of Aralez’s forecast cited by KuCoin projected a similar Q3-to-Q4 pattern, with a roughly $60,000 low point in the third quarter followed by a break above $85,000 in the fourth quarter, a recovery the analyst tied specifically to the anticipated start of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts under incoming Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh.

Other analysts have offered more modest and range-bound projections for the coming months. According to LiteFinance’s compiled forecasts, CoinCodex projects bitcoin’s average price reaching roughly $85,469 during the third quarter before gradually declining to around $78,448 by December, while DigitalCoinPrice’s model anticipates a mixed third quarter around $75,181 followed by a pullback to roughly $68,766 by year-end, illustrating that not every forecasting model currently supports continued near-term upside from current levels.

Prediction markets have offered a similarly cautious read on bitcoin’s near-term trajectory. According to Yahoo Finance’s coverage of Galaxy Research’s outlook, Polymarket traders had priced the odds of bitcoin falling to $45,000 sometime in 2026 at 40%, with a 32% chance of a drop to $40,000, compared with just a 30% probability assigned to a rally toward $90,000, reflecting a betting market that, as of that assessment, leaned more toward continued downside risk than a sustained rally.

Underlying much of the disagreement among forecasters are a handful of concrete, still-unresolved macroeconomic variables that are likely to shape bitcoin’s actual path over the coming three months more than any individual analyst’s model: the timing and scale of Federal Reserve interest rate decisions following Chairman Kevin Warsh’s remarks at the upcoming Jackson Hole symposium, whether Congress advances the stalled CLARITY Act establishing clearer regulatory boundaries for digital assets, the trajectory of spot bitcoin ETF flows following June’s record outflows, and broader geopolitical developments, including the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran, that continue to influence overall investor appetite for risk assets.

Given that bitcoin has already demonstrated the capacity for both a roughly 50% peak-to-trough decline and a sharp, multi-week rally within the same calendar year, the honest answer to whether the cryptocurrency’s price will keep climbing over the next three months is that no forecaster, however confident, can offer a reliable guarantee in either direction. The range of professional predictions reviewed here, spanning a further collapse toward the high $30,000s to a rally back above $100,000, underscores just how much genuine uncertainty remains priced into bitcoin’s near-term outlook. This article is not financial advice, and anyone considering exposure to bitcoin, in either direction, should weigh the significant disagreement among professional analysts outlined here alongside their own research and risk tolerance before making any investment decision.