Bitcoin Sits Out a Record-High Tape as September Fed Hike Odds Firm
The macro setup: a Fed whose next move may be up
The most important thing in the current backdrop is that the next move in US policy rates is not obviously downward. The FOMC left its target range at 3.50% to 3.75% on July 29, but the vote was 9-3, and all three dissents were in favour of a rate increase — per the Federal Reserve's statement and CNBC's account of the meeting. The statement described activity as expanding at a solid pace with inflation still elevated relative to the 2% goal, and flagged uncertainty owing in part to the conflict in the Middle East.
Markets have taken the hint. Ahead of the September 16 meeting, traders were pricing roughly a 57% chance of a hike on the CME FedWatch tool as of August 5, per a market review published that day. Polymarket's September contract had "no change" narrowly ahead at 53%, with a 25bp increase at 47%. That is an unusual setup: a policy rate uncut all year, with the tail risk skewed toward tightening.
The labour data cuts the other way, which makes the September call genuinely open. ADP reported private payrolls grew just 44,000 in July, released August 5 and well short of a consensus that sat somewhere in the 70,000 to 75,000 range depending on the survey, against a downwardly revised 95,000 in June. Nonfarm payrolls rose only 57,000 in June against forecasts nearer 110,000. The July employment report lands Friday, August 7, with forecasts clustered between 75,000 and 120,000 and the unemployment rate seen at 4.2% to 4.3%.
So: a cooling labour market, inflation still above target, and three hawkish dissenters. For a long-duration, liquidity-sensitive asset like Bitcoin that is the least helpful configuration — the cuts that would justify a re-rating are not priced, and the hike that would hurt is.
Risk is on, and Bitcoin is not invited
The striking part is that this hawkish rates picture has not stopped risk assets. The S&P 500 closed above 7,700 for the first time on August 3, set a record on August 4, and eased around 0.2% on August 5 to roughly 7,705 — a level bryptoflows' own quote feed corroborates at 7,703.35. The dollar index broke below 100 on August 5, trading near 99.80 to 99.88. Gold sits around $4,305. The ten-year Treasury yield held near 4.62% on August 5.
The driver of that risk appetite is geopolitical rather than monetary. Reporting on the August 5 session tied the rally to hopes of a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with President Trump saying it "could happen, tomorrow or the next day," a proposal reportedly drafted by Qatar, and Iran said to be considering allowing European countries to remove mines from the waterway. Crude fell on that news — the cleanest explanation for a dollar that weakened while the Fed stayed hawkish.
A softer dollar and a record equity tape are, on the standard playbook, a supportive combination for Bitcoin. It has declined to participate, trading at $64,649 on bryptoflows' live feed, up 0.28% over 24 hours, down 0.16% over seven days and up just 2.04% over thirty. The August 5 daily close was $64,625; the August 6 candle sits at $64,645. Against a 180-day high of $82,164 set on May 10 and a low of $58,603 on June 30, Bitcoin is 21.3% below its spring peak and grinding sideways in the low-$60,000s.
The honest reading is that the equity rally is a relief trade in the oil price and a geopolitical risk premium, not a liquidity impulse. Bitcoin has no direct claim on the first and needs the second. That is an open question rather than a conclusion, though: one week of divergence is not a broken correlation.
Does the flow data agree?
Partly, and in a way that complicates the bearish story. Bryptoflows' ETF flow data, current through the August 5 session, shows the category quietly turning:
- The latest session took in +$244.4M net, with $259.1M gross inflow against just $14.7M gross outflow.
- That extends a three-session positive streak worth +$626.0M, which is also the entire week-to-date and month-to-date figure.
- The reading is above average but not extreme: a flow z-score of +0.57, in the 74th percentile of sessions since spot ETFs launched.
- Breadth is middling rather than broad — 5 of 12 reporting products positive, with only one negative and the rest flat.
The medium-term picture is still repairing. The 60-session net flow remains -$7,378.3M and the year-to-date figure is -$4,591.0M, even as the 20-session window has flipped to +$669.0M. Cumulative net flow since inception stands at +$52.0B, about $10.7B below the $62.7B peak.
The streak runs through the funds that matter — BlackRock's IBIT, Fidelity's FBTC, Bitwise's BITB and ARK's ARKB are each on three-session positive runs — so this is not one product's rebalancing. That is a real, if early, divergence: the ETF bid is recovering while price does nothing.
Strategy: the other bid has switched off
The corporate treasury channel is where the demand picture turns negative, and it is the better explanation for a flat price than the ETF data is.
Through the July 27 filing, the most recent in bryptoflows' treasury history, Strategy held 843,775 BTC at an aggregate cost of $63.69B, an average of $75,476 per coin. Its last disclosed purchase was the June 22 filing: just 520 BTC for $34.9M at an average $67,068. The four filings since — June 29, July 13, July 20 and July 27 — each disclosed no change.
Financing did not pause alongside it. Bryptoflows' financing data, current as of the August 3 filing, shows $290.6M of net proceeds from 3,011,361 common shares in the latest period, and the run of weekly issuance since late June totals roughly $2.7B. Capacity is not the constraint: about $47.9B remains available across the five programs. Capital kept being raised; it stopped being converted into bitcoin.
At $64,649, the holdings carry an unrealized loss of roughly $9.1B against that cost basis — spot sits about 14% below Strategy's average cost. One caveat worth stating: the dashboard's treasury history has not yet picked up the August 3 8-K, though the financing side of that same filing is already reflected. Press reports of it, including The Block, describe a bitcoin sale during the week to August 2. Those figures are not yet in our data and are not treated as confirmed here, but the direction is consistent with what the July filings already show: a treasury that has stopped adding. Holdings also step down by 3,588 BTC between the June 29 and July 13 filings with no transaction row attributing it — worth flagging rather than characterising.
What to watch for the rest of the week
- Friday's July employment report. After ADP at 44,000, a soft print pressures the hawkish dissent and is the most plausible route to Bitcoin catching a rates bid.
- Whether the Hormuz deal lands. The oil relief is largely in the price; the risk is a reversal, which would hit equities harder than Bitcoin.
- Whether the three-day ETF inflow streak survives into a fourth and fifth session, or fades back toward the negative 60-day trend.
- Strategy's next 8-K. Whether the buying pause persists, and whether proceeds keep going to the balance sheet rather than to bitcoin.
- No policy catalyst is coming. Crypto market-structure legislation slipped past the August recess target, with analyses putting enactment unlikely before mid-2027. This market trades on macro, not Washington.
Track the flow data live on the flow pulse overview and ETF flow dashboards, and Strategy's treasury on the MSTR breakdown. Flow and treasury figures are read from bryptoflows' own API — ETF flows via Farside Investors, Strategy detail from SEC filings, prices from Hyperliquid. Macro figures are sourced to the reporting linked above, retrieved August 6, 2026.