Analysts see bitcoin bottom forming through boredom as price clings to $64K amid spot ETF inflows

Bitcoin held near $64,000 on Tuesday even as spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds absorbed $211.5 million in net inflows and Wall Street broke to fresh records on Aug. 4. The divergence is one that analysts read as a market compressed into stillness rather than one bracing for a fall.

Spot ether ETFs also took in $53.8 million the same day. Indeed, the S&P 500 closed at a record 7,737, with the Nasdaq up 2.6% on AI earnings and Brent crude sliding below $80 amid easing tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Wintermute.

The ETF bid landing without lifting bitcoin price is the tell. Wintermute OTC trader Jasper De Maere argued that the marginal buyer in spot is not outright long. He went on to posit that the recovery narrative only holds if bitcoin (BTC) convincingly clears $65,000 in the near term.

The week bitcoin sat out

Glassnode framed the same stillness as the week's central puzzle. Global markets broke to records while bitcoin barely moved, more than four points behind the S&P 500, the firm said.

Elsewhere, a theft of 594 BTC from Coldcard hardware wallets on July 31, worth about $38 million, triggered a scramble that saw roughly 119,000 BTC recovered from at least a year of dormancy over three days — 200 times the stolen amount — yet spot registered no measurable sell pressure.

The loot ran into fresh cold storage, not onto exchanges, Glassnode said. Only about a tenth of the revived supply has stuck to exchanges, and coins held in wallets less than a month old have climbed 40% since then.

K33 tracked the same event from the other side, reporting that bitcoin's seven-day active supply hit a 2026 high with about 890,000 BTC moved as the exploit widened, a spike Head of Research Vetle Lunde said tends to cluster near local tops and bottoms.

A bottom through boredom

Analysts suggest the bottom signals are assembling, but through exhaustion rather than a flush.

Glassnode's Seller Exhaustion Constant sits at this cycle's low, inside the zone where every past bottom has formed, yet still roughly a third above the floor every prior bear eventually reached. This gauge is in the doorway, not the room, the firm said.

Bifinex analysts drew a similar line. Roughly 155,000 BTC has accumulated between $62,000 and $65,000, now bitcoin's largest onchain cost-basis cluster and about 0.7% of circulating supply, evidence that buyers are absorbing the selling even after price triggered the firm's own downside signal with two daily closes below $63,000.

With 54.6% of supply in profit as of the Aug. 2 close, "the average holder is effectively at breakeven," Bitfinex analysts said. They note this is a condition that has historically marked cycle bottoms rather than breakdowns.

The rails still run in reverse

The demand side stays the weak link. U.S. spot ETFs and corporate treasuries, the institutional rails of the last two years, spent the past quarter handing coin back, with the funds returning roughly 65,800 BTC in June alone, their worst month on record, Glassnode said.

Whatever forms the bottom will have to form without that structural bid until it turns.

Priced for nothing

The options market has stopped paying for a move in either direction. Glassnode found upside implied volatility at the lowest reading in its history, near 23%, as the call bid evaporated.

Wintermute put bitcoin's one-day straddle at a 1.01% implied move into Wednesday's expiry, the tightest print of the week, pinning an expected range of roughly $63,454 to $64,749. Sentiment, by contrast, will not sit still.

Glassnode's one-week skew collapsed more than eight points in a single session on a day spot barely moved, whiplash that lives almost entirely in options while perpetual funding holds to its long-run norm.

The market has bought a week of calm and keeps paying up for half a year of risk, the firm said. "Priced for nothing and reacting to everything is not a stable state," Glassnode analysts wrote.

Real yields hold the next move

Where the next move comes from increasingly seems more a macro question.

Bitcoin is becoming more dependent on macro conditions than crypto-specific demand, with rising real yields and the defense of the $62,000–$65,000 range likely to decide direction, Bitfinex analysts said. For bitcoin, the decisive variable is the real cost of money, the return investors earn after inflation.

As such, this macro read points to Friday. Capital.com senior financial market analyst Kyle Rodda said easing geopolitical risk, falling rate-hike expectations and strong earnings are all supporting risk appetite at once, with attention now turning to the U.S. jobs report.

The odds of a September Fed hike have receded to about 60% after softer job-openings data, down from as high as 100% going into last week's FOMC, according to Rodda. Economists expect the economy added 85,000 jobs in July with unemployment steady at 4.2%.

History leans one way on compressions this deep. When one-month realized volatility has squeezed to comparable levels, the release has almost always resolved upward, Glassnode said — the most constructive data point in its read, and the one carrying the heaviest caveat.

Past squeezes mostly resolved with a demand engine idling in the background. This one is forming with the rails in reverse and the exhaustion leg unfinished.

Bitcoin changed hands around $64,600 on Wednesday, as ETH hovered near $1,900, per The Block’s price page.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2026 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.