Bitcoin downside looks limited above $76,350: Bitfinex analysts

Bitcoin has held between $76,500 and $79,500 for five trading days as its $76,350 active-investor cost basis has absorbed selling after a 24.9% August gain.

Bitfinex analysts said in a Sept. 2 Alpha report that Bitcoin’s position above the True Market Mean reduces the risk of a deep pullback, even though September has produced an average loss of 2.95% since 2013.

The True Market Mean, which measures the average cost basis of active Bitcoin investors, stood at $76,350 when the report was published. Bitcoin had remained inside a 3% range between $76,500 and $79,500 since Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh delivered a hawkish message at Jackson Hole on Aug. 28.

Selling has appeared around the upper end of the range, but buyers have prevented Bitcoin from closing decisively below the on-chain cost basis. Bitfinex described $76,350 as a market pivot rather than a fixed price that buyers must defend to the dollar.

August closed with Bitcoin up 24.9% from its $62,922 monthly open, recording its first positive August since 2021 and its largest monthly gain since November 2024. As crypto.news reported in its coverage of Bitcoin’s best August since 2017, the rally left $80,000 as the main resistance level entering September.

Bitcoin momentum favors limited pullbacks

During the week ended Aug. 23, Bitcoin added $14,833, the largest weekly dollar gain in its history, according to Bitfinex. The increase exceeded the previous record, set in November 2024, by $3,275 and produced a weekly return of 23.6%, the strongest percentage gain since March 2023.

Historical data cited in the report showed that Bitcoin has recorded 17 weekly gains above 15% since 2020. The price was higher 30 days later in 14 of those cases, with a median return of 8.4%.

Based on that record, the analysts said corrections are likely to remain “short lived and limited in scale” while Bitcoin stays above the former $68,000 range ceiling. The level also sits close to the area where traders have concentrated downside options protection.

Bitcoin’s strength has continued despite pressure from two U.S.-linked risks. Warsh’s comments raised expectations for another interest-rate increase, while renewed conflict between the United States and Iran pushed Brent crude toward $95 per barrel.

Warsh said inflation had not improved fast enough to assure policymakers that it was returning to the Fed’s 2% goal. In an earlier report on his Jackson Hole speech, prediction-market traders placed the probability of a 2026 rate increase at 68% after Bitcoin slipped below $80,000.

Higher U.S. rates can lift Treasury yields and the dollar, raising the cost of holding non-yielding assets. Bitfinex nevertheless found that Bitcoin’s price structure had remained intact during the five sessions following the speech.

Sellers are exiting Bitcoin close to breakeven

On-chain spending data indicate that investors who bought Bitcoin around current prices are providing much of the available supply.

The long-term holder Spent Output Profit Ratio, or SOPR, moved between 0.88 and 1.19 over nine consecutive sessions and stood at 0.98 in the report. A reading of 1 means the average coin is being spent at the same price at which its holder acquired it.

Bitfinex linked the pattern to buyers from February and March who held through the subsequent decline and began selling when Bitcoin returned to their entry prices. For five sessions, bids absorbed that supply without allowing the price to break below the True Market Mean.

Two sustained changes would weaken that reading, according to the analysts. SOPR falling below 0.9 while Bitcoin declines would indicate that holders are accepting losses to exit. A move above 1.1 would show that investors with larger unrealized gains are selling into strength.

Supply concentration around the current range helps explain why BTC price has moved sideways. When Bitcoin closed at $80,256 on Aug. 27, 72.1% of circulating supply was in profit. By the time the price closed at $77,468, the share had fallen to 67.7%.

Bitfinex calculated that roughly 880,000 BTC carried a cost basis inside the $2,800 gap between the two closes. Each move across the area pushes a large block of coins between profit and loss, changing the incentive to sell.

The short-term holder cost basis, meanwhile, stood at $69,980 and was climbing by about $300 per day. Bitfinex identified the level as possible support during a deeper correction, below an initial target near $73,500.

Strategy purchases offset weaker Bitcoin ETF flows

Corporate demand returned while Bitcoin was meeting passive sellers above $77,000. Strategy purchased 4,603 BTC for $369.7 million between Aug. 24 and Aug. 30, paying an average price of $80,318 per coin.

The transaction was Strategy’s first Bitcoin purchase in 10 weeks and increased its holdings to 845,050 BTC, acquired for an average of $75,412. At-the-market equity sales financed the deal, according to the company’s filing.

Strategy’s average price for the purchase has been above every Bitcoin daily close since May 14. The company therefore bought inside the same area where the market had struggled to sustain prices above $79,000.

Demand for U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds became less consistent over the same period. A nine-session inflow run totaling $3.04 billion ended with $201.9 million in redemptions on Aug. 28, the day of Warsh’s speech.

Inflows returned with $216.7 million on the following Monday, including $205.9 million directed to BlackRock’s IBIT. Sept. 1 then produced a $236.5 million outflow, driven mainly by IBIT, according to the figures cited by Bitfinex.

A separate analyst assessment identified sustained ETF buying as one requirement for extending the rally. The same report noted that spot products recorded $606 million of inflows on Aug. 20 as Bitcoin moved above $76,000.

While Bitcoin fund demand cooled, U.S. spot Ether ETFs attracted $815.7 million during the previous week and extended their inflow run to 13 sessions through Sept. 1. Bitfinex said Strategy’s renewed buying had helped counter the slowdown in Bitcoin ETF demand.

Stablecoin supply also stopped expanding after rising by $1.25 billion before Warsh’s remarks. Aggregate market capitalization peaked at $309.4 billion on Aug. 28 and later stood at $303.83 billion, according to the report.

Bitfinex interpreted the change as capital waiting at the market’s entry point rather than leaving crypto through a sustained wave of stablecoin redemptions. Stablecoins often serve as settlement assets for traders, making changes in their total supply a gauge of capital available for deployment.

Bitcoin options favor upside without heavy leverage

Options traders have purchased protection around scheduled U.S. economic releases, but the positioning does not show an across-the-board bet on a Bitcoin decline.

Average implied volatility stood at 37.2 for a sixth consecutive session between 37 and 38, placing it in the 18th percentile of daily closes recorded during the previous year. Options had been cheaper on fewer than one in five trading days, while the 2026 low was 33.8.

Implied volatility also remained below the trailing 30-day realized volatility of about 41%. Bitfinex said the pricing indicated that traders expected the current compression to continue even though Bitcoin had moved 21% within three sessions in August.

The Sept. 11 at-the-money straddle cost $3,208, requiring a 4.13% move to reach breakeven. Unlike the options expiring on Sept. 4, the contract covers the U.S. payroll report, the Producer Price Index release, and seven standard trading sessions.

Across the eight U.S. payroll releases held in 2026, Bitcoin moved by an average of 1.9% on release day. Four produced moves below 1%, while the other four generated changes ranging from 2.4% to 4.4%, according to Bitfinex.

Downside protection for the payroll-to-Consumer Price Index window was concentrated between $68,000 and $75,000. The Sept. 11 expiry carried one put for every call, compared with an overall options-market put-to-call ratio of 0.56.

Call open interest was largest at $80,000, while put open interest was concentrated at $75,500. Perpetual-futures leverage remained 10% below its August peak, which Bitfinex interpreted as traders retaining upside exposure without rebuilding a large pool of positions vulnerable to forced liquidation.

Under the report’s base case, Bitcoin would remain between $76,657 and $81,300 through the Sept. 4–11 U.S. data window. Two daily closes above $82,818, accompanied by SOPR above 1 and positive ETF flows on both days, would open a path toward the next cost-basis reference near $85,200.

Two closes below $76,657 would instead activate Bitfinex’s retracement scenario, placing the three-to-six-month holder cost basis near $73,500 first and the short-term holder cost basis at $69,980 second.