Bitcoin (BTC) starts the first full week of August at a crossroads as market nerves combine with a BTC price bounce.
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After bouncing from three-week lows, BTC price action is fielding mixed targets with bigger August volatility expected.
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The market environment is now fundamentally different from Bitcoin’s old all-time highs from January, analysis says.
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Macro conditions keep the focus on the Federal Reserve as September interest-rate cut bets return.
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Bitcoin hodlers staged a mass sell-off at the start of the month, with even whales reducing exposure.
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Demand for Bitcoin, however, remains firmly in place, helping add context to short-term market nerves.
$116,500 becomes new BTC price “magnet”
After wicking below $112,000 last week, Bitcoin is dividing opinion as data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows a push toward $115,000.
Concerns over a bigger BTC price correction contrast with the belief that the retracement is over and that BTC/USD is even preparing new all-time highs.
$BTC chart couldn’t be more bullish.
Retest of previous ATH ✅
Daily Close above SMA 50 ✅
Now, BTC is looking good for a new ATH. pic.twitter.com/JZVFIr4Cjt
— BitBull (@AkaBull_) August 4, 2025
“$BTC Has continued its streak of setting the high or low within the first week of the month. We’ll have to see if August is going to be any different,” popular trader Daan Crypto Trades summarized in part of his latest analysis on X.
“What we do know is that the current monthly high ($116K) has a very low chance of holding as we’ve never seen a monthly wick high this small in the past 4 years.”
Daan Crypto Trades compared recent price moves to those throughout 2025, concluding that volatility has so far been insufficient.
“The current move from high to low is also just ~3.6%,” he noted.
“There’s also a very high likelihood we make a larger move this month. The smallest monthly low to high difference within a month is about 10% for BTC in its past 4 years. This of course says nothing about direction.”
Fellow trader Crypto Caesar likewise eyed a “big bounce” for the start of the TradFi trading week while comparing current price action to moves seen since May.
Analyzing exchange order-book liquidity, popular commentator TheKingfisher meanwhile flagged $116,500 as a key level at which short BTC positions would get liquidated.
“Most traders are probably just staring at the price action, but smart money knows this is where the fuel for a move is,” he told X followers Sunday, calling $116,500 a “magnet.”
Bitcoin trend line holds key to deja-vu price action
When it hit old all-time highs of $109,300 in January, Bitcoin saw a retracement which proved to be lengthy — and painful — for bulls.
By April, BTC/USD was plumbing multimonth lows under $75,000, having put in a drawdown versus the highs of over 30%.
Fast forward half a year, and the pair is down almost 10% against its latest record peak, leading to comparisons with price action from earlier in the year.
For popular trader CrypNuevo, however, there is little reason to think that Bitcoin will simply repeat behavior from old highs.
“Is January’s Price Action repeating now?” he queried in an X thread Sunday.
“The reversal PA was almost identical at the highs since it’s a common pattern for a pullback after reducing momentum. However, the current situation is very different and it’s unlikely PA repeats further.”
CrypNuevo noted that January saw a trip below the 50-day exponential moving average (EMA), which then flipped to resistance.
The 50-day EMA trendline is currently near $112,900, with price seeing just one daily close below it on Aug. 2.
“In January we saw the 1D50EMA becoming resistance – I doubt we see that now. I think a deviation below it to $110k support should likely hold well,” the thread continues.
CrypNuevo said that “market structure and context” differed from January, pointing to the increasing odds of a US interest-rate cut in September.
Consensus again favors September rate cut
With less US economic data due, the Federal Reserve is itself in the spotlight this week.
The standoff with President Donald Trump continues over interest rates, which Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other officials opted not to cut at their latest meeting.
Powell already faces calls to resign from Trump over policy, which the latter views as too restrictive and costly to the economy.
“Powell should be put ‘out to pasture,’” Trump demanded in a post on Truth Social Aug. 1.
Mixed inflation data and a strong labor market have allowed the Fed to hold firm on its course, but the most recent jobs figures cast doubt over how…
cointelegraph.com