Key Takeaways
- Strategy offloaded 1,690 bitcoins causing BTC to slide below $63,000.
- Altcoins extended losses as ADA plunged 10.6% and XRP dipped below $1, risking a drop toward $0.95.
- LINK surged 13% after Standard Chartered forecasted the token would reach $200 by late 2030.
Bitcoin Leads Mid-August Market Pullback
After finishing the first week of August with modest gains, the cryptocurrency market ended the second week in the red. Bitcoin, which had posted gains exceeding 3%, led the market lower after it tumbled from over $65,000, closing just above $63,200. It could have been worse after the cryptocurrency fell below $62,500 on Aug. 14, but a quick rebound kept bitcoin’s weekly losses capped below 3.2%.
During the week, the latest inflation report and a lull in hostilities in the Middle East did help boost global markets. However, in bitcoin’s case, Strategy’s announcement at the start of the week that it had offloaded 1,690 bitcoins the previous week weighed on the asset. While Strategy attempted to assuage the market with a promise to resume buying, this ultimately failed to nudge bitcoin back to pre-announcement levels.
The top cryptocurrency’s decline alone wiped out more than $30 billion in market capitalisation and left the market with minimal gains midway through August.
Besides bitcoin, several high-cap altcoins also trended downward during the period, led by XRP, which shed nearly 4%. One of the year’s early front-runners, XRP has steadily declined, and on Aug. 11 it briefly dipped below $1 following a sell-off. Although it subsequently reclaimed that threshold, the digital asset remains 69% below its January 2025 peak near $3.30.
