Bitcoin is up 26% this month — outperforming gold (+13.8%), the Nasdaq (+4.8%) and the S&P 500 (+3.2%) — and for the first time this cycle it is moving in lockstep with gold rather than with equities. Its 30-day correlation with gold has surged to +0.81; its correlation with the Dollar Index is at −0.86. That rotation matters, because it suggests investors are treating bitcoin as a store of value and fiscal hedge rather than a high-beta tech trade. The week’s decisive moment arrives at 10am ET this morning, when Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivers his first-ever Jackson Hole keynote. The entire rally in bitcoin and gold rests on a single question he will answer: will the Fed support the Treasury’s bond buyback program, or will it defend its independence and let yields find their own level? Solana is the week’s standout performer at +20%. Have a great weekend.
CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets.
L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal.
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Bitcoin is outperforming stocks and correlating with gold just when it matters most.
Bitcoin has gained 26% this month, surpassing gold (+13.8%), the Nasdaq 100 (+4.8%) and the S&P 500 (+3.2%) by a substantial margin — and at a moment when both stocks are already near record highs. The more significant development is not the return but the correlation structure. According to TradingView data, bitcoin’s 30-day correlation with gold has climbed to +0.81 — a strong, positive relationship suggesting the two are moving together. Its correlation with the Dollar Index has deepened to −0.86, meaning BTC and the dollar are moving in strongly opposite directions. Simultaneously, its link with the Nasdaq has weakened. That combination is exactly what bitcoin bulls have argued for years the asset would do in a period of fiscal stress: trade like gold, not like a high-beta tech stock. The fundamental backdrop that is driving it: U.S. Treasury yields recently hit their highest since 2007, reflecting concerns about America’s fiscal trajectory. The Treasury responded with a bond buyback program to contain yields — an approach that, rather than addressing the underlying spending dynamics, has raised market expectations of eventual Federal Reserve bond-buying. Fidelity’s director of global macro Jurrien Timmer described it as a “slippery slope towards fiscal dominance” where the Fed is expected to become complicit in Treasury’s yield management. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have absorbed $2.8 billion across eight consecutive sessions of inflows — the longest streak since April — while August total inflows have cleared $3 billion, making it the strongest month of 2026. The 50-day simple moving average has crossed above the 100-day SMA, a bullish near-term signal. If it continues rising to cross the 200-day SMA, a golden cross would form — a pattern associated with long-term bullish momentum. Next resistance sits at $82,814, the high from May.
Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech could make or break the bitcoin and gold rally.
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivers his first Jackson Hole keynote at 10am ET today — his first major public speech since taking office in May and the event the crypto community has been circling on the calendar all week. The question markets are asking is not primarily about interest rates. It is about something more structural: whether the Federal Reserve is willing to coordinate with — or at minimum tolerate — the Treasury’s $4 billion bond-buyback program to contain long-dated yields. Bitcoin surged from $64,000 to above $80,000 in a week after Treasury Secretary Bessent announced the expanded buybacks on August 19, because markets interpreted the move as the opening of a path toward Fed-backed yield-curve control. If the Fed eventually buys bonds itself to hold yields down, it would inject fresh liquidity and further erode the real value of cash — a scenario that has historically been extremely bullish for gold and bitcoin. Two contrasting outcomes are possible. If Warsh signals implicit Fed acquiescence to the Treasury’s program — or leaves room for potential coordination — the debasement narrative gets validated and bitcoin and gold likely climb further. If he emphasizes Fed independence, dismisses the buybacks as routine, or rules out Fed participation, Treasury yields and the dollar could rise and both hard assets could sell off. There is also a middle scenario — and analysts at BNY consider it most likely: Warsh says very little of substance. He has consistently avoided forward guidance since taking office, preferring to let markets set their own prices. On that track record, an outright endorsement or explicit rejection of the buyback program is unlikely. Instead, BNY expects him to speak broadly about his reform agenda across five task forces covering inflation frameworks, data, communications, balance sheet policy, and productivity and jobs. That would leave markets still guessing — which could itself be either stabilizing or destabilizing depending on where positioning is when he starts speaking.
Bullish backs a stablecoin backed by Nvidia chips with $100 million in financing.
Bullish — the cryptocurrency exchange and CoinDesk’s parent company — is extending a $100 million debt facility to USD.AI, a stablecoin protocol that makes loans secured by graphics processing units (GPUs) to companies building artificial intelligence infrastructure. The deal is a direct intersection of two of the year’s dominant investment themes: the insatiable appetite for private credit to finance the AI buildout, and the drive to tokenize real-world assets to unlock crypto’s pools of on-chain liquidity. USD.AI works by accepting stablecoin deposits and lending them out as GPU-backed loans to AI infrastructure companies — effectively turning idle on-chain capital into productive, yield-generating credit backed by physical chips. As of the announcement, more than $225 million in crypto assets were already locked in the protocol. The $100 million facility from Bullish will allow USD.AI to significantly expand its loan book. Bullish also plans to list USD.AI’s sUSDai token across multiple trading pairs on its exchange, creating a secondary market for exposure to GPU-backed debt — similar to how a bond ETF gives investors access to a pool of credit without holding individual loans. David Choi, CEO of USD.AI developer Permian Labs, framed the vision plainly: “Compute is becoming a credit market in its own right.” The broader context is that Nvidia’s latest earnings confirmed AI chip demand is growing faster than supply can meet it, making GPU-backed credit an increasingly attractive asset class. The arrangement represents what a mature on-chain credit market could look like: tokenized real-world collateral (GPUs), on-chain liquidity providers (crypto stablecoin depositors), an institutional credit facility (Bullish’s $100M), and a secondary exchange-traded market (sUSDai on Bullish Exchange). Also Friday: Circle’s USDC became the front-of-shirt sponsor for Chelsea FC — the first stablecoin to appear on a Premier League jersey — and Visa announced a new stablecoin payments partnership with South Korean crypto exchange Upbit operator Dunamu.
CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets.
L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal.
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