This is a daily analysis by CoinDesk analyst and Chartered Market Technician Omkar Godbole.

A softer-than-expected U.S. PPI pushed bitcoin BTC$113,975.90 past $113,600, confirming the bullish inverse head and shoulders pattern highlighted earlier this week.

The breakout signals the end of the recent pullback from record highs above $124,000 and the resumption of the broader rally. Using the measured move technique, which adds the distance between the pattern’s low and the breakout point to the breakout level, suggests bitcoin could reach nearly $120,000.

The ascending 50-, 100-, and 200-hour simple moving averages (SMAs) support the bullish momentum gathering strength. Additionally, the daily chart’s MACD histogram crossing above zero further confirms a positive shift in market sentiment.

On the upside, bulls may encounter resistance near the heavily watched 50-day SMA at $114,700, while on the downside, the recent higher low at around $110,000 serves as a key level for bears to challenge.

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Hongji Feng

Author

Hongji Feng

About Author

Hongji is a reporter who covers crypto, finance, and tech. He graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism with a Bachelor’s and a Master’s. He has previously interned at HTX,…

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Last updated: 

August 28, 2025

Unusual stock movements ahead of cryptocurrency announcements at several small-cap companies are prompting scrutiny over potential insider trading, according to a Fortune report published on August 28.

The story cites multiple instances where company shares surged in the days before disclosing large crypto purchases. MEI Pharma, for example, saw its stock nearly double prior to revealing a $100 million Litecoin acquisition. No regulatory filings or public statements were issued ahead of the spike.

Experts and Executives Share Concerns

A similar pattern was observed at firms including SharpLink, Mill City Ventures, and Kindly MD.

“It does look suspicious to me,” said Xu Jiang, a finance professor at Duke University. “This usually happens for a lot of insider trading scenarios that I anecdotally know about.”

SharpLink’s shares more than doubled three days before the company announced a $425 million Ethereum allocation. The company said it has “established policies and procedures” to prevent insider trading, but did not provide specifics.

Mill City Ventures, which has since rebranded as SUI Group Holdings, saw its shares triple ahead of news that it raised $450 million to acquire Sui.

“There was definitely activity in the stock prior to the announcement,” said Stephen Mackintosh, an executive involved in the deal.

Executives and investors who receive material non-public information before a crypto deal are subject to insider trading laws, including those briefed during roadshows, said Elisha Kobre, a partner at Sheppard Mullin.

Insider Trading Looms Over Crypto Industry

Some companies are now withholding ticker symbols from investors until markets close, in an attempt to limit price distortion. CEA Industries and Verb Technology have both adopted this approach in recent weeks.

“It’s really to everyone’s advantage to squash this issue,” said Louis Camhi, founder of RLH Capital.

While insider trading rules are well established in traditional finance, the rise of crypto treasury strategies introduces gray areas in enforcement. Unlike mergers or earnings reports, crypto purchases often involve decentralized assets with volatile pricing and informal communication channels, making it harder for regulators to monitor information flows or trace leaks with precision.

At the same time, the expanding trend of treating crypto holdings as strategic balance sheet assets blurs the line between operational decisions and market signaling. Analysts say the mere expectation of price impact tied to a crypto pivot can invite speculative positioning, even in the absence of formal leaks.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Bitcoin’s brief dip below $110,000 in the past 24 hours triggered one of the heaviest liquidation rounds in recent times.

According to Coinglass data, crypto traders betting on the market lost $811.6 million, with more than 179,000 traders forced out of positions.

Speaking on this broad liquidation event, Sean Dawson, head of research at Derive.xyz, told CryptoSlate:

“This sharp move appears to be the result of overleveraged positioning, particularly following ETH’s recent run-up, and an overnight dip in the S&P 500, which weighed on risk assets more broadly.”

Notably, the most significant single liquidation came from a BTC-USDT order worth $39.2 million on HTX.

Long traders, those betting on a price increase, absorbed the bulk of the losses, giving up $699.5 million, while shorts lost $112.2 million. This skew toward longs suggests that traders misjudged the strength of the recent rally, leaving them vulnerable when the price pulled back.

Bitcoin accounted for the steepest losses, with traders losing over $270 million in a single day. On Aug. 25, Glassnode noted that over $150 million in long positions were wiped out, marking one of the largest flushes since December 2024.

Ethereum followed with $266 million in liquidations, also dominated by long bets. Other major assets, including Solana, Dogecoin, and XRP, saw additional drawdowns of $38.5 million, $18.8 million, and $17.3 million, respectively.

Bitcoin could dip to $100,000

Meanwhile, the significant liquidations have fed into growing bearish sentiment among market participants, according to data from Derive.xyz

Data from the crypto derivatives trading platform showed that crypto traders now see a 35% probability of Bitcoin falling to $100,000 before the end of September, and a 55% chance that Ethereum could retest $4,000.

Dawson explained that the 25-delta skew has turned negative for both BTC and ETH, meaning traders are paying more for downside protection than upside exposure.

According to him:

“This is the strongest demand for downside protection we’ve seen in two weeks. Traders appear to be bracing for potential retests of $4,000 for ETH and $100,000 for BTC.”

He further noted that macroeconomic headwinds and volatility are weighing on the outlook, resetting risk appetites across the market.

Mentioned in this article

The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, has notably been on a Bitcoin selling spree throughout this week, triggering a wave of sell-offs in the process. These sales have occurred due to the outflows that the asset manager has witnessed from its BTC ETF. 

BlackRock Dumps Around $500 Million In Bitcoin

Arkham data shows that BlackRock has offloaded around $500 million in Bitcoin this week, with transfers to Coinbase, a move that indicates a move to sell these coins. The asset manager has sold these coins following outflows from its iShares Bitcoin ETF, which was the norm throughout this week.

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SoSo Value data shows that BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF first recorded a daily net outflow of $68.72 million on August 18. The fund then further saw net outflows of $220 million, $127.49 million, and $198.81 million on August 20, 21, and 22, respectively. Notably, the iShares Bitcoin ETF has accounted for most of the outflows, with the BTC ETFs as a group currently on a six-day streak of consecutive net outflows. 

These Bitcoin ETFs have seen total net outflows of almost $1.2 billion since August 15. Meanwhile, in just this week alone, over $1.1 billion has left these funds, sparking a bearish sentiment for the BTC price. Given BlackRock’s position as a major player in the Bitcoin ecosystem, outflows from its fund had sparked a wave of sell-offs. This led to a massive decline for the flagship crypto earlier in the week. 

The Bitcoin price had dropped to as low as $112,000 this week as BlackRock and other BTC investors took profit on their investments. This followed the flagship crypto’s rally to a new all-time high (ATH) of $124,000 last week. However, BTC has now sharply rebounded on the back of Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole speech, in which he indicated that a rate cut might happen in September. 

An End To The BTC ETF Outflow Streak

Notably, Powell’s speech was enough to spark fresh inflows into the Bitcoin ETFs on August 22, with BlackRock the only fund manager that recorded a net outflow on the day. Further data from SoSo Value shows that Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest recorded a daily inflow of $65.47 million, the most among the issuers on the day. 

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Meanwhile, Fidelity, Van Eck, Franklin Templeton, Bitwise, and Grayscale recorded inflows of $50.88 million, $26.41 million, $13.51 million, $12.70 million, and $6.42 million, respectively. However, BlackRock recorded an outflow of $198.81 million, which led to a daily net outflow of $23.15 million for the funds as a group. With the Bitcoin price rebounding, these funds, including BlackRock’s IBIT, could return to witnessing significant daily inflows from next week.

At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price is trading at around $115,900, up over 2% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from Tradingview.com

Blockchain tracking service Whale Alert posted a major alert showing that 129,392 ETH was transferred from an unidentified wallet to Coinbase as the Ethereum price tumbled. On-chain data from Etherscan shows that this particular wallet had not been involved in the transfer of large ETH volumes since November 2022. This sudden reactivation and deposit into a centralized exchange opens up speculation of a looming selloff, especially given the timing of the transfer.

Massive ETH Transfer As Middle East Tensions Escalate

Whale transaction tracker Whale Alerts, which initially reported the transfer on the social media platform X, noted that at the time of the transfer, these 129,392 ETH were worth $312,981,377. The timing of the transfer is noteworthy because it occurred when the price of Ethereum failed to hold above $2,500 and had already begun to struggle to stay above $2,400. 

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Etherscan’s tracking of on-chain transactions indicates that the unknown wallet “0xd47b,” which was involved in the transfer, has been relatively inactive since late 2022. Particularly, its last transaction was an inflow of 6,469 ETH from another wallet linked to Coinbase. 

The latest transfer into Coinbase leans more towards the possibility of a selloff through the exchange. Since then, the Ethereum price has lost a key support level at $2,450. Its price has fallen notably in the past 48 hours. 

Although other factors are clearly contributing to the dip, particularly new geopolitical tensions after the US launched attacks on Iran, this whale deposit into Coinbase may have increased the downward pressure. Exchange inflows of this magnitude are a precursor to liquidation, particularly now that investor sentiment is on edge.

Bearish Setup Confirms Downside Targets

The technical picture for Ethereum is now turning bearish, at least in the short term. Technical analysis of Ethereum’s 4-hour chart on the TradingView platform shows a clear bearish breakdown setup after Ethereum broke below a crucial support line at $2,362. That support level has now been breached, and confirmation of the breakdown amplifies a bearish case moving forward. 

Related Reading

Chart Image From TradingView

The chart above, which includes overlays of the Ichimoku Cloud, shows a fading bullish momentum in the past few days. Previous failed attempts to break resistance have left Ethereum in a vulnerable zone, and the recent whale selloff may have delivered the final push needed to trigger this leg down. 

If the current trajectory continues, Ethereum could be on its way to retesting lows below $2,000. According to the TradingView analysis, potential reversal targets are at $2,151 and $1,954, with a third possible level at $1,750 if the selloff is more than expected. At the time of writing, Ethereum is trading at $2,290, down by 5.5% and 10% in the past 24 hours and seven days, respectively.

Featured image from Dall.E, chart from TradingView.com

Global economic tensions and trade policy uncertainties continue to influence cryptocurrency markets as Bitcoin recovers from a recent correction.

Despite the pullback, institutional interest remains strong with firms like Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and GameStop adding BTC to their corporate treasuries.

Technical Analysis Highlights

• The 24-hour period shows a clear bottoming pattern with strong volume support emerging around the $103,200-$103,400 zone, where buyers consistently stepped in, according to CoinDesk Research’s technical analysis data model.
• The subsequent recovery phase gained momentum after breaking above the $104,000 resistance level, with increasing volume confirming buyer conviction.
• This technical structure suggests the correction has likely completed, with the price now establishing a new support base for potential continuation of the broader uptrend.
• In the last hour, Bitcoin demonstrated a notable recovery pattern, climbing from $104,146 to $104,303, with significant bullish momentum emerging at 14:01.
• Price surged from $104,188 to $104,323 on substantially higher volume (429 BTC traded).
• The price action formed a clear consolidation range between $104,077 and $104,263 before the breakout, with key support established around $104,080-$104,090.

External References

• “Bitcoin Price Extends Losses — Is More Downside on the Horizon?”, NewsBTC, published May 30, 2025.
• “Bitcoin at Risk of Breakdown if Major Support Level Fails, Says Trader Justin Bennett – Here Are His Targets”, The Daily Hodl, published May 30, 2025.
• “Bitcoin price prediction 2025-2031: Will BTC hit $150k soon?”, Cryptopolitan, published May 31, 2025.