Cryptocurrency market review

Aug 21, 2026, 1:27:34 PM

This week, the cryptocurrency market strengthened significantly, and currently the BTC token is trading around 76300.00 (+21.0%), ETH at 2380.00 (+26.9%), USDT at 0.9997 (+0.04%), BNB at 670.00 (+10.7%), while XRP returned to fifth place by market capitalization and is at 1.3100 (+31.2%). Total market capitalization rose to 2.54T dollars, and the share of BTC rose to 59.8%, while over the last four sessions the balance of Bitcoin-ETFs decreased by 1.610B dollars, and Ethereum-ETFs by 508.6M dollars.

The positive dynamics of the sector were driven by a combination of several positive factors, the most important of which experts call the actions of the US Department of the Treasury, which, in response to an increase in the yield of 30-year government bonds to a 19-year high of 5.337%, announced a plan to increase buyback volumes from 2.0B dollars to 4.0B dollars: conditions in the debt securities market of about 30.0T dollars softened significantly, which increased investor risk appetite and put pressure on the American dollar. Digital traders reacted to the government’s actions by closing a large number of short positions: according to the CoinGlass exchange, on Thursday the total volume of liquidated “bearish” contracts amounted to 3.0B dollars, the high single-day figure in the entire history of observations since 2021, and the largest individual closed trade in BTC amounted to 25.13M dollars and was carried out on the Hyperliquid platform. Today this trend continues, and by now traders have withdrawn another 1.0B dollars, with the total figure exceeding 4.0B dollars.

Additional support for the crypto assets was provided by President Donald Trump’s statements, who, at a White House meeting with executives of leading industry companies such as Coinbase Global Inc., Gemini Trust Company LLC, Ripple Labs Inc., and SmartContract Inc., called on the Senate to swiftly approve the Digital Market Structure and Transparency Act (CLARITY). The politician added that this would support the country in competing with China on innovation matters. Markets hope that Trump’s call will help advance CLARITY, but experts maintain cautious stances, noting that the provisions of ethics articles preventing current administration policymakers from profiting from cooperation with cryptocurrency companies have still not been fully agreed upon. The closest consideration of the bill may take place on September 14.

Finally, the increase in the price is facilitated by a decrease in the probability of monetary policy tightening by the US Fed. While it was previously believed that policymakers would raise the interest rate as early as September, after the publication of weak July labor market data reflecting a reduction in nonfarm payrolls by 23.0K, and retail sales recording a weakening of 0.6%, expectations of interest rate adjustments decreased significantly, although forecasts of such moves in December, according to the FedWatch Tool of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), remain above 65.0%. According to the minutes of the regulator’s latest meeting, the majority of members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) are concerned about rising price pressure and are ready to take measures to contain it, and in the medium term these sentiments may negatively affect digital assets.

Overall, sentiment in the cryptocurrency market shifted from pessimistic to optimistic, as evidenced by a significant increase in the fear and greed index into the greed zone to 72, and under these conditions, soon, most leading assets may continue positive dynamics or transition to consolidation.

Scenario

Time frame

Weekly