The Federal Reserve releases the minutes of its July meeting at 2:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, August 19 — the first full account of a policy debate that produced three dissents in favour of a quarter-point rate increase, from Cleveland’s Beth Hammack, Minneapolis’s Neel Kashkari and Dallas’s Lorie Logan. That is the macro event most likely to reprice risk assets this week, and it lands on a bitcoin market that just failed a technical test in the quietest possible way.

Bitcoin’s weekly candle for August 10–16 settled at $62,900.00 at 23:59:59 UTC Sunday on Binance’s BTCUSDT pair (our own exchange pull); CoinGecko’s aggregate index printed the same close nearer $63,057. Both are below $63,220, the weekly-close line we wrote down on Sunday as this week’s cleanest binary test — so the test failed, on either source. More usefully: $62,900 is the lowest weekly close since the week beginning June 22, when bitcoin settled at $59,577 — seven weeks ago. Then, in the small hours of Monday, the tape ignored all of it. As of 06:08 UTC bitcoin traded at $63,508, up 0.77% on 24 hours with a market capitalisation of $1.275 trillion (our own CoinGecko pull), and Binance’s 06:00 UTC hourly candle closed at $63,616 — the session high, and +1.14% off Sunday’s close. Ether traded at $1,898.26, up 1.04%. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index printed 31, “Fear” on Monday morning (our own alternative.me pull), down from 34 on each of the previous two days — sentiment deteriorating while price rises is the kind of divergence that usually resolves loudly.

The week that broke the close: $389.7 million out of the ETFs

The candle did not fail on nothing. US spot bitcoin ETFs shed a net $389.7 million between August 10 and August 14, their largest weekly withdrawal in six weeks, per The Crypto Times. Friday closed the week with a third consecutive red day — a net outflow reported at $56.2 million by Blockchain.News and $57.63 million by Bitcoin World, a spread we cite as a range because the trackers no longer agree to the dollar. BlackRock’s IBIT was effectively the entire print at −$55.5 million and Fidelity’s FBTC gave up $6.8 million; Blockchain.News additionally reported Bitwise’s BITB taking in $6.1 million against the tide, a component figure we have not been able to corroborate elsewhere and flag as single-sourced. The daily path across the week: −$144.67 million Monday, −$61.16 million Wednesday, −$131.13 million Thursday, −$57.63 million Friday. Across the complex, total net assets stand at roughly $76.6 billion, against $51.8 billion of cumulative net inflows since the funds began trading on January 11, 2024.

Monday’s print is the one that matters now. A fourth consecutive red day would make this the longest outflow streak since June, and would sit awkwardly against a market that spent the overnight session bidding.

Strategy files again today — and the missing 1,691 coins are accounted for

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) files an 8-K most Mondays, and the last two have disclosed sales rather than purchases. The August 3 filing reported 1,638 BTC sold for $104.73 million between July 27 and August 2 at an average of $63,957, leaving 842,138 BTC as of August 2, per the company’s SEC filing. The August 10 filing reported a further 1,690 BTC sold for $108.6 million covering August 3–9 at an average of $64,262, with the proceeds directed entirely into repurchases of STRC preferred stock — and, separately, 6,585,682 common shares sold for $653.1 million net. Holdings after the sale: exactly 840,447 BTC, at an aggregate purchase price of $63.36 billion and an average cost of $75,385, alongside a $4.65 billion USD reserve. We flagged the gap against our own August 6 figure of 842,138 as unreconciled; it reconciles. 842,138 minus 1,690 is 840,448 — a one-coin rounding difference. The apparent discrepancy was simply the second sale.

Which makes today’s filing, if it arrives on schedule, the third data point in a row. Two consecutive weekly sales is a funding tactic; three starts to look like the operating policy of the BTC Monetization Program, adopted by the board on June 29 under its Digital Credit Capital Framework and authorising up to $1.25 billion of tactical bitcoin sales, alongside a $2 billion buyback authorisation split evenly between common and preferred stock. Note also what the August 10 filing shows in combination: the company sold coins and issued equity in the same week — the treasury machine is not out of levers, it is using several at once. MSTR closed Friday at $93.04 (Yahoo Finance daily data), down from $100.01 on August 7 — roughly 7% lower across a week in which MSCI reopened the question of whether companies like it belong in mainstream equity indices at all. Today’s Guide is a field manual for reading exactly this filing.

The rest of the board

    • Monday data: the NY Fed’s Empire State Manufacturing Index at 8:30 a.m. ET and the NAHB Housing Market Index at 10:00 a.m. ET. Estimate sources diverge on both — one widely circulated calendar puts Empire State at 10.2 against a prior 15.6 and NAHB at 35.0 against 34.0, while other providers carried a roughly unchanged Empire State reading near 17. Grade against the actual print, not the estimate.
    • Wednesday: FOMC minutes, 2:00 p.m. ET. The Fed held at 3.50–3.75% on July 29 over three dissents; the minutes are the first full look at that split under Warsh.
    • September odds: wide dispersion. Fed funds futures have been quoted as high as roughly 82% for a September hike, other futures-implied reads near 65%, and Kalshi’s contract nearer 29%. We print the spread rather than pick one; the next FOMC decision is September 16.
    • Mining: the next difficulty retarget at block 963,648 is projecting −0.28% as of 06:10 UTC on our own mempool.space pull — against −1.63% at the same hour on Sunday. Blocks came fast. Today’s Analysis reads what that swing means.
    • Equities: S&P 500 futures closed Friday at 7,801.25, down 0.27%, with the Dow at 53,789.00 and Nasdaq at 30,132.25, after the cash index eased about 0.2% from a record.

Two more scheduled items frame the fortnight, and both sit on the same day as the minutes. On Wednesday, August 19, the White House hosts a 2:30 p.m. ET roundtable at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with crypto and prediction-market executives, with President Trump, CFTC Chair Mike Selig, Treasury Secretary Bessent and Commerce Secretary Lutnick expected. On Thursday, August 20, the CFTC convenes its Innovation Advisory Committee for the first time — a three-hour virtual session themed “The Evolution of Crypto Regulation: From Uncertainty to Clarity.” Both follow the SEC’s abrupt cancellation, announced Thursday August 13, of the open meeting set for August 14 at which it was to vote on proposing “Regulation Crypto”; the agency cited an unforeseen scheduling issue and has set no new date. Then core PCE on August 26, and the Kansas City Fed’s Jackson Hole symposium on August 27–29, where Warsh delivers his first keynote as Chair on the morning of August 28 under the theme “Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy.” The Senate, meanwhile, left without advancing the CLARITY Act; a cloture vote is set for September 15.

Where did bitcoin close the week of August 10, 2026?

Bitcoin’s weekly candle settled at $62,900.00 on Binance’s BTCUSDT pair at 23:59:59 UTC on Sunday, August 16, with CoinGecko’s aggregate index nearer $63,057. Both are below the $63,220 level flagged as this week’s technical test, and $62,900 is the lowest weekly close since the week beginning June 22.

Why does the August 19 FOMC minutes release matter for bitcoin?

The July 29 meeting held rates at 3.50–3.75% but produced three dissents in favour of a hike. The minutes are the first full account of that split under Chair Kevin Warsh, and they feed directly into September rate-hike odds, which currently span roughly 29% to 82% depending on the source.

Has Strategy been selling bitcoin?

Yes. Its August 3 filing disclosed 1,638 BTC sold for $104.73 million, and its August 10 filing disclosed a further 1,690 BTC sold for $108.6 million, with proceeds funding preferred dividends and STRC repurchases. Holdings stood at exactly 840,447 BTC after the second sale, at an average cost of $75,385. A third consecutive weekly filing is expected today.

How much did bitcoin ETFs lose last week?

US spot bitcoin ETFs shed a net $389.7 million between August 10 and August 14 — the largest weekly withdrawal in six weeks — ending with a third consecutive red day of roughly $56–58 million on Friday, led almost entirely by IBIT.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Cryptocurrencies and crypto-linked equities are volatile and you can lose money. Do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.