Bitcoin is facing a major test at $65,400 this week as traders watch whether it can finally break through a resistance level that has repeatedly produced fakeouts.

Doctor Profit has described the setup as the “Old Man’s Punch,” and the outcome could determine its next major move.

Fear Has Switched Sides

The current area has seen significant selling in recent weeks. Doctor Profit believes that a brief move above the level would not be enough to confirm a breakout. Bitcoin has already moved above $65,400 several times, only to fall back and produce fakeouts. What the analyst wants to see instead is several weekly closes above the level.

If that happens, he said BTC would break the second major resistance zone of the current bear market. The next important levels are around $77,000- $78,000 and $83,000.

According to the analyst, there has been a shift in market psychology as the biggest fear now sits with stablecoin holders. He explained that fear of missing out has become greater than the fear of another major crash, which could lead to faster and more aggressive accumulation as more investors decide they do not want to remain in stablecoins if Bitcoin rises.

He divides the current risk into two groups. One group is seeking a few percentage points of improvement in its entry, while the other is positioned for the next cycle.

Bitcoin is now playing out inside the same $58,000-$74,000 range it traded in throughout 2024. The range was previously identified as an important reference for the 2026 bear market. The current setup is following that structure, building an accumulation zone between $54,000 and $64,000. The analyst said that these moves suggest that the asset is forming a bottom “exactly inside” the old 2024 box.

A rejection at this level would change the near-term picture. In that scenario, Bitcoin could target $61,500 with further potential downside toward $54,000. A market bottom can take several months to develop and does not necessarily form within days or weeks.

The macro calendar adds another layer of risk this week. CPI inflation data is due Wednesday, August 12, followed by PPI on Thursday, August 13. Doctor Profit considers CPI the main event, particularly with markets pricing in hike risk rather than cuts. An upside CPI surprise could put pressure on markets.

The next FOMC meeting is not scheduled until September 16, which leaves markets to react to these inflation reports without fresh Fed guidance in between.

Best ETF Week Since April

On the institutional front, US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs kicked off August with their strongest weekly performance in months and pulled in $853.54 million over five straight days of inflows. The week began with $170 million on August 3, followed by $211.49 million on Tuesday and $244.42 million on Wednesday.

The figures then slowed to $128.69 million on Thursday and $98.85 million on Friday. But the total surpassed the combined inflows of the previous four weeks and was the best weekly performance since mid-April.

The post Will the ‘Old Man’s Punch’ Finally Hit or Fail? Bitcoin (BTC) Faces a Critical Test appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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Shibarium – Shiba Inu’s layer-2 scaling solution – has finally shown signs of revival, perhaps sparking hopes among the SHIB Army that the price could respond to the momentum.

Nonetheless, many other factors suggest that the self-proclaimed Dogecoin killer is not out of the woods yet and could experience an additional short-term decline.

Mixed Signals, But Bears Prevail

Shibarium officially saw the light of day in the summer of 2023 and was designed to advance the Shiba Inu ecosystem by lowering transaction costs, improving speed, and enhancing scalability. At first, the protocol processed millions of daily transactions, but an exploit in 2025 abruptly changed things for the worse.

The figure dropped to mere hundreds, signaling waning user engagement and slow network participation. Data shows that there has finally been some improvement on that front, with daily transactions topping almost 4,500 on August 9, the highest level since July 10.

Some popular voices from the crypto world have opined over the years that Shibarium’s progress is vital for the meme coin’s performance. One example is the early Bitcoin advocate Jeremie Davinci, who said in 2025:

“I like Shiba Inu, as you know, and I think it will do relatively well in this cycle, but it may not go as high as you expect. I think Shiba Inu has a lot of utility now that they have Shibarium, and basically, it’s a chain that you can actually run all kinds of applications. However, nobody is using it, and there are no applications for using your tokens on Shibarium yet. If they get that solved, Shiba Inu will go to the moon.”

It is important to note that Shibarium’s recent resurgence is far from what the community hopes to see, meaning a strong price reaction is more likely if activity returns to previous levels and breaks past them.

Meanwhile, other elements suggest that SHIB could head south soon. The amount of coins stored on exchanges has risen to around 87.5 trillion: the highest since the end of June. This suggests that investors have been flocking from self-custody methods toward centralized platforms, thereby increasing immediate selling pressure.

Next on the list is Shiba Inu’s burn rate, which has fallen by 75% over the past week. The program’s ultimate goal is to reduce the token’s circulating supply, thus making the price more valuable through scarcity. However, the team and community will have to up their game in that field to cause a meaningful ascent.

SHIB Price Outlook and Predictions

As of this writing, the meme coin trades at around $0.000004654, translating into a 20% plunge from the local top reached last month when a certain whale resumed accumulating after months of inactivity.

According to X user Kamran Asghar, SHIB is compressing within a descending wedge at key demand around $0.00000455-$0.00000465. They believe a breakout above the range near $0.00000475 would confirm a bullish reversal toward $0.00000520+.

The post Key Shiba Inu (SHIB) Metric Hits Monthly High: Breakout Ahead or Not Yet? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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Crypto.com has terminated plans for a multi-billion dollar digital asset treasury (DAT) stock, it’s slashing rewards for cardholders, top executives have departed, and its proprietary token, CRO, has declined 70% over the past year.

Indeed, Crypto.com, Trump’s publicly traded DJT, and another publicly traded company with a ticker symbol that stood for “Make CRO Great Again” terminated their proposed multi-billion dollar business combination over the weekend.

The proposed DAT stock was supposed to be “the first and largest publicly traded CRO treasury company.” It will not be the first nor largest anymore.

In preparation for the ultimately unsuccessful business combination, it had even switched its ticker symbol from YORK to MCGA, an obvious play on Trump’s MAGA acronym. 

Kris Marszalek, Crypto.com’s CEO, forecasted MCGA would have become the world’s largest CRO holder, would have somehow exceeded the market capitalization of CRO itself, and would have kept its CRO purchases “forever.”

None of those forecasts came true.

The price of CRO slid below $0.05 on the cancelation news, its lowest price since October 2023, and the companies scrapped a second deal that had Crypto.com servicing ETFs by Yorkville America, the company behind the MCGA ticker.

As the once-solid relationship with the Trump brand showed signs of fraying, the three companies blamed “prevailing market conditions, and shifting business and stakeholder priorities.” Marszalek said “moving forward under current market conditions doesn’t make sense.”

Crypto.com slashes cardholder rewards for CRO stakers

The news made things worse for customers who were already upset about another Crypto.com decision. 

In late July, Crypto.com emailed cardholders that it would be reducing cashback rates and other cardholder rewards like airport lounge access. 

Specifically, as of October 1, the cashback rate of “Ruby” tier Crypto.com cards is dropping 50 basis points from 2% to 1.5%, and their monthly spending cap for those rewards falls from $1,250 to $750.

More importantly, “Icy White” tier cardholders lose their unlimited 4% cashback rate to a 3.5% rewards rate capped at $3,000 in spend.

Earning those rates required locking up CRO tokens, yet many cardholders noticed that the terms changed while their tokens remained locked.

“It’s about ethics and trust,” one argued, “it is reasonable to expect those conditions to be honoured for the agreed period.”

In addition to reduced cashback and lounge rewards, staking rewards for tokenholders who locked-up CRO for those card rewards are also reducing on September 10.

The Pro lock-up tier is dropping from 4% to 3%, and the top Private lock-up tier from 9% to 6%.

This is not the first time Crypto.com has lowered its incentives for cardholders. In May 2022, it slashed CRO card rewards so abruptly that community backlash forced a partial reversal within days.

Read more: Crypto.com breach exposed more data than CEO claimed, report

Team members were already heading for the exits

Crypto.com’s Chief Legal Officer Nick Lundgren resigned in April. Even though Crypto.com has a prediction market division, Lundgren joined a competitor, the prediction market Underdog, weeks later. 

Crypto.com’s Chief Marketing Officer Steven Kalifowitz, the executive behind the $700 million, 20-year Crypto.com Arena naming deal, stepped down on June 30. 

Chris Fargis, who oversaw Crypto.com’s prediction markets initiative, left on July 10 after less than a year in his role.

The departures followed deeper cuts. 

In March, the exchange shed 12% of its staff, around 180 jobs. The firm’s derivatives arm, meanwhile, sued Washington’s state attorney general in July, arguing federal law shields its sports prediction markets from state gambling regulation.

On August 2, crypto deposits and withdrawals stalled across all networks for roughly three hours. “All user funds remain completely safe,” the status page said.

CRO traded near $0.047 at time of writing, down roughly 48% this year, -71% over the past 12 months, 95% below its November 2021 peak.

Protos reached out to Crypto.com for comment but didn’t hear back prior to publication time.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Is a crisis brewing at Crypto.com? appeared first on Protos.

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Vitalik Buterin overlaid his 2023 Ethereum roadmap diagram onto the Ethereum Foundation's current strawmap on Monday and said the most striking part of the comparison is the set of items that were not on the 2023 diagram in any form: privacy, defenses against quantum computers, and an execution… Read the full story at The Defiant

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BlackRock Canada launched two exchange-traded funds Monday, including a portfolio that combines globally diversified equities with a 3% allocation to Bitcoin.

The two funds, which began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, are the iShares Equity + Bitcoin ETF Portfolio (IBQT) and the iShares Core MSCI All-International Equity Index ETF (XINT).

IBQT allocates 97% of its portfolio to Canadian, US, international and emerging-market equities and 3% to Bitcoin (BTC) exposure through BlackRock’s Canadian iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), which trades on Cboe Canada. Rather than investing in individual stocks, IBQT primarily holds other iShares ETFs to provide its equity and Bitcoin exposure.

XINT tracks the MSCI ACWI ex North America IMI Index, providing exposure to more than 5,000 companies across over 40 developed and emerging markets outside Canada and the US.

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Both funds are managed by BlackRock Asset Management Canada through the RBC iShares alliance. BlackRock said its iShares business managed approximately $6.2 trillion in assets across more than 1,700 ETFs as of June 30.

The asset management giant’s US-listed iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) is the largest US spot Bitcoin ETF by assets under management, with about $47.9 billion in AUM, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Top five US spot Bitcoin ETFs by AUM. Source: CoinMarketCap

Magazine: BIP-110 ends with a whimper, CLARITY vote punted: Hodler’s Digest, Aug. 9

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USD/JPY climbed to 158.93 on Monday, its highest level this month. Just 10 days ago, Japan’s nearly $88 billion yen intervention had dragged the pair down from 164.

The yen is once again August’s weakest major currency. The fight may now be moving to Japan’s bond market, where 10-year yields sit near multi-year highs.

The $88 Billion Yen Intervention Is Already Fading

Japan’s Ministry of Finance bought yen on July 30 and 31, working through the Bank of Japan (BOJ). BOJ account data suggest the first day cost about ¥8.45 trillion, or $53 billion. That ranks among the largest single-day yen purchases ever.

A second round the next day added roughly $34 billion. Together, the two days cost Tokyo close to $88 billion. That came on top of an estimated ¥11.7 trillion spring campaign whose effect faded within weeks.

The United States then joined in, its first coordinated yen purchase since 1998. Washington sold euros for yen through the New York Fed. European officials reportedly learned of it only afterward.

The shock worked at first. USD/JPY tumbled from just under 164 to about 157.3 in early August, TradingView data shows. Monday’s bounce means the pair has already won back about a quarter of that drop.

Each rescue also costs more than the last. The US side reportedly spent $5 billion to $10 billion this time, versus $833 million in 1998. Japan went it alone in 2022 and 2024, and both of those rallies faded within weeks too.

The 1998 episode carries a lesson as well. Back then, the yen only turned decisively months later, when carry trades unwound and Tokyo moved to fix its banks. Buying yen bought time. Policy change did the rest.

Capital Keeps Leaving Japan

Goldman Sachs sees one reason the rescue is not sticking. Japanese investors kept buying foreign bonds at a strong pace in July, per a Goldman view. In short, money keeps leaving Japan faster than officials can pull it back.

The bank argues a BOJ rate hike next month would help the yen more than another rescue. Yet rate traders trimmed the odds of a September move on Monday, strategist Marc Chandler observed. The market, in effect, is daring officials to act.

Monday’s data gave the doubters more ammunition. Japan posted a ¥92.3 billion ($580.7 million) current account deficit in June, its first in 17 months. The current account is the country’s broadest ledger of money moving in and out.

Economists had expected a surplus of roughly ¥1.51 trillion ($9.5 billion). Instead, larger dividend payouts to foreign shareholders slashed Japan’s investment income by 74%. Costlier fuel imports pushed the trade balance into the red as well.

The full picture is less dire. Japan still ran a record ¥17.43 trillion ($109.7 billion) surplus in the first half of 2026, helped by strong chip exports. However, the June miss landed at the worst possible moment for yen sentiment.

Mohamed El-Erian, Allianz chief economic adviser, argues the fix lies in policy, not firepower.

“The yen has been weakening gradually since the large joint Japan–US FX intervention, a sharp reminder that the key to fixing a currency “mispricing” is getting the policy mix right. The longer Japan delays in doing so, the more elusive the goal of this historic intervention becomes,” he wrote.

Japan’s Bond Market Becomes the Real Test

Japan’s 10-year government bond (JGB) yield hit 2.807% on Monday, per TradingView. It has climbed from below 2% in January and now sits near multi-year highs.

That climb matters because Japan’s government debt tops 200% of GDP, the heaviest load among major economies. Every rate hike raises the state’s interest bill.

The BOJ itself is feeding that climb. At least three board members said the bank could raise rates faster than planned, its July meeting summary showed. Governor Kazuo Ueda reportedly signaled a possible September hike, a stance that helped pull Washington into the rescue.

For now, the central bank holds its policy rate at 1%. It has warned that core inflation could run above its 2% target.

Higher yields cut both ways for Tokyo. A faster hiking path would narrow the rate gap with the US and help the yen. It would also deepen the paper losses piling up on Japanese balance sheets.

Japan’s four largest life insurers already sit on roughly $96 billion in unrealized JGB losses. Japan is also the biggest foreign holder of US Treasuries, at about $1.14 trillion. A messy yield spike could force selling on both sides of the Pacific.

That risk explains why the US backed the rescue at all. Officials reportedly feared that runaway yen weakness would fuel Japanese inflation and lift bond yields worldwide. The currency defense, in other words, doubled as a bond market firewall.

Bitcoin Is Caught in the Middle

Crypto has skin in this game. Carry trades borrow cheap yen to fund bets on higher-yielding assets, so sudden yen strength forces messy exits. Bitcoin (BTC) slid to near $63,000 when the joint rescue first hit.

Traders remember how bad that can get. In August 2024, a surprise BOJ hike helped spark a global carry trade unwind. The Nikkei suffered its worst day since 1987, and Bitcoin briefly fell below $50,000.

The setup now cuts both ways for crypto. A September hike could squeeze carry trades again and drain liquidity from risk assets. A failed defense of the yen could instead push global yields higher, another blow to risk appetite.

The caution already shows. Bitcoin barely moved last week even as gold and silver staged a $2.7 trillion metals rally. Investors hunting a hedge went for metals first.

As of this writing, BTC changed hands at $64,038, steadily sliding further below the $65,000 threshold. That calm reads as wait-and-see, not an all-clear.

The near-term calendar offers plenty of triggers. US inflation data lands Wednesday, and a soft print could ease pressure on the pair. A push above 159 would revive talk of a second joint strike near 160.

September now looms as the decisive moment. A confirmed hike could finally narrow the rate gap, though it would push JGB yields, and insurer losses, higher still. Another hold would leave Tokyo defending 160 with reserves alone.

The $88 billion may have bought time rather than a turning point. Whether the yen finds a floor, and whether Bitcoin stays calm, could depend on how much bond market pain Japan is willing to absorb.

The post America Helped Save the Yen, The Market Just Took It Back, and Bitcoin Is Exposed appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Crypto analyst Sykodelic said Bitcoin is building toward explosive moves well ahead of the Q4 low that many traders expect, as the market sits in an unusually quiet stretch that has left participants bored.

The trader has already entered a short position after a weak weekly close, looking for a quick drop that clears built-up liquidity before a reversal higher.

The Setup That Has Traders Watching Closely

Sykodelic described the current environment as one where “the lack of volatility and compression we are seeing here only ever finishes in one way. MASSIVE moves.” They noted that the quiet has left “everyone bored out of their minds” while they wait for Q4 lows, but added, “We are gonna move way before that. It’s gonna be soon.”

The trigger came when the $65,300 level was taken out, and Bitcoin posted a weak weekly close. “My short is filled,” they wrote. “After waiting weeks for a clear trigger, we now have one.” They expect a drop to $60,500 that would mark the final move lower before a meaningful advance.

Sykodelic has long viewed the February low near $60,000 as the major macro bottom and believes the market is close to moving higher overall. The short, they said, aims for a sharp liquidation that cleans up liquidity accumulated below for weeks.

That would create a bear-trap setup, where late sellers turn bearish and call for new lows, only for a quick reversal to squeeze them and push the price above $67,000 toward the mid-$70,000s.

“Whenever we have been sideways like this for a long time, a massive amount of liquidity builds up either side,” he wrote. “It is always so much better if the liquidity below is swiped before actually moving higher.”

That view lines up, loosely, with a separate read from Crypto Patel, who pointed to the fund market premium index holding around 0.14.

“For now, the signal is quietly bullish,” Patel wrote, adding that institutional selling pressure hasn’t shown up in the data yet, even with the premium sitting on the low side.

A Sideways Market With Mixed Signals

Bitcoin has given traders little to work with lately. It slipped to $62,200 early last week before buyers pushed it back to $65,000, only to get turned away thereafter when the CLARITY Act hit another delay in the Senate.

A weak jobs report on Friday gave it one more push to $65,400 before it settled back down, and it was trading near $65,000 at the time of writing, up about 0.8% on the day but still down close to 45% over the past year.

The quiet has produced some louder optimism elsewhere, including from analysts Ali Martinez, Michaël van de Poppe, and Merlijn The Trader, who all pointed to signs of a completed correction, citing everything from a rare monthly TD Sequential buy signal to what they read as a classic breakdown and reclaim pattern.

The post Analyst Predicts Big Market Moves Before Q4 as Traders Grow Bored in Quiet Crypto Market appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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