Analysis: Bitcoin Holding Above $81,000 Could Mark a Key Signal of the Bear Market's End

Former X product lead Nikita Bier responded today to claims he "restricted Crypto Twitter exposure," stating that during his tenure, he launched the Cashtags feature—allowing direct display of Solana and Ethereum price charts in posts—and revealed a crypto trading button is coming soon. Bier noted users can already paste contract addresses of newly issued tokens directly into X posts; once the trading button launches, users will be able to buy and sell tokens directly within posts without switching to other trading platforms. Specific launch timelines, supported assets, and trading partners have not been disclosed yet. Regarding the recent crypto market rally, Bier attributes it primarily to expectations of a weaker U.S. dollar, triggered by the U.S. Treasury expanding its scale of long-term U.S. Treasury repurchase operations. The U.S. Treasury previously announced it would raise the size of some long-term Treasury repurchase operations to at least $4 billion, a move that has sparked market discussions about pressure on the U.S. dollar.

UBS’s latest report shows that its market vulnerability monitoring tool, the Turbu-lens index, rose to the maximum alert level of 1.0 on August 19, hitting its highest point since the end of 2024. The indicator integrates around 100 data points including high-yield corporate CDS, G10 currency volatility, and S&P 500 CTA positions to assess potential market crash risks. Maxwell Grinacoff, head of U.S. equity derivatives research at UBS, and his team noted that historical data shows markets often face sharp volatility after the index hits 1.0. The two key risk events for the current market are the September Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) interest rate meeting and the November U.S. midterm elections; the options market expects the S&P 500’s daily volatility to reach around 1% around these events. UBS believes that while current market vulnerability is at extreme levels, the specific factors triggering sharp market volatility remain unclear, and investors should closely monitor changes in Federal Reserve policy and U.S. political developments. Previously, after the index hit its peak at the end of 2024, the VIX saw successive significant increases.

CryptoQuant analyst ArabxChain stated that Binance’s estimated leverage ratio for XRP has risen to its highest level in over seven months. Data shows the metric is currently around 0.213, the highest since January this year. Analysts believe that if the leverage ratio increases alongside XRP’s price gains and growing open interest, this may reflect rising trader confidence and continuous new position building, thereby supporting a subsequent upward trend. However, higher leverage also means the market is more sensitive to price volatility, so potential cascading liquidation risks need to be guarded against.

Arthur Hayes published an update stating that eligibility for the FLOP airdrop will be determined by users’ testnet activities. Testnet token faucets will launch on Technocore.chat, and users will need to access them via an AI agent’s DID key. Earlier, Hayes revealed that FLOP plans to conduct a large-scale airdrop in Q4 2026, with 20% of its total token supply allocated to testnet participants, to be distributed over 10 years—adjustments may be made later, and the figure was released specifically to gather user feedback. FLOP is expected to rank among the top two cryptocurrencies in the market.

The crypto whale "First Set 10 Big Goals" responded to a question about whether a trend reversal or a major rally is more likely now, stating that the trend has reversed. Earlier, the whale noted, "This round of trend has been more intense than I initially expected, so we can be bolder in our outlook. I don’t think it’s too late to enter the market even at $80,000 or above—there’s still room. The $100,000 mark will likely be hit earlier than I previously anticipated. We’ll re-assess how far this trend can go once we cross $100,000." "If Strategy resumes its continuous buying spree next, would that be the bulls’ 'signal to go all in'? It’s certainly not a direct buy trigger, but I will definitely treat it as a high-weight signal. Someone who has truly weathered stress tests, knows their capital structure’s bottom line, and is adding real capital to positions—their actions are at least more worthy of study than the vast majority of verbal opinions in the market."

After Bitcoin rallied sharply by around 25% last week and briefly broke above $80,000, the market remains divided on the direction of its current trend. Technical indicators show Bitcoin’s weekly Relative Strength Index (RSI) has risen to 58.3, its highest level since the all-time high of $126,200 hit in October 2025, and it has formed a bullish divergence similar to that seen during the 2022 bear market bottom: prices had been making lower lows, while the weekly RSI formed higher lows. Jamie Coutts, chief crypto analyst at Real Vision, notes that weekly-level bullish divergences are highly valuable for judging long-term trends and cycle inflection points, with similar signals in the past often followed by further price gains. However, short-term indicators show signs of overheating: Bitcoin’s daily RSI has climbed to 82.93, its highest level since November 2024. Some traders are cautious about short-term pullback risks, but some analysts argue that it is not uncommon for RSI to stay above the overbought threshold of 70 for extended periods during historical bull markets. Additionally, Bitcoin’s two-month Stochastic RSI recently formed the expected golden cross, a potential bullish signal for a trend shift. However, this indicator only hit a low of 4.81 this time, failing to drop to near-zero levels as seen in signals before historical bear market bottoms, so the market still needs further observation to confirm whether this rally marks the official end of the macro bear market.