August opened on a hopeful note. Washington signalled that a deal with Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz was within reach, and oil fell from the $100 mark where July had ended to below $80. Two weeks later none of that was left: the agreement expired on 17 August without an extension, oil was back above $90, and the American labour market shed jobs for the first time in months. Crypto moved the other way. Bitcoin rose from the low $60,000s to a three-month high of $81,455, helped by the prospect of a less restrictive Fed and by the SEC’s proposal for a regime tailored specifically to crypto assets.<\/p>\n
The July employment report landed badly. Instead of the 83,000 jobs economists had penciled in, the economy lost 23,000. Government payrolls fell by 53,000, retail and leisure and hospitality were soft, and healthcare grew more slowly than usual. The unemployment rate nevertheless improved to 4.1%, against a consensus that expected it to hold at 4.2%.<\/p>\n
Wages told the same story of cooling. Average hourly earnings were up 3.2% over twelve months, the weakest pace since May 2021. Traders read the report as a brake on the Fed and cut the odds of a quarter-point hike in September from 55% to 42% on the day. Equities opened higher, Treasury yields fell, and bitcoin spent those first weeks trading quietly in the low $60,000s. (Source: CNBC<\/a>)<\/p>\n The July consumer price index came in exactly where the market had expected. Prices rose 0.1% on the month, and 0.2% excluding food and energy. On an annual basis headline inflation eased to 3.4% and the core rate to 2.5%, both a tenth of a point below June.<\/p>\n Energy pulled the figure down, though a single month says little about whether the price shock from earlier in the year is genuinely behind us; too much of that still depends on the Middle East. Stock futures rose and yields fell across the curve. For crypto markets the relief was straightforward, since a less restrictive Fed takes pressure off non-yielding assets such as bitcoin. (Source: CNBC<\/a>)<\/p>\n The early-August easing in oil reversed completely inside two weeks. The memorandum of understanding the United States and Iran signed on 17 June granted free passage for sixty days and ran out that Monday. Neither Tehran nor President Trump was willing to discuss an extension. Brent, the North Sea crude that serves as the international benchmark, gained 2.7% to settle at $90.87 a barrel, having traded below $80 earlier in the month.<\/p>\n What is at stake explains the move. Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG trade normally moves through the Strait of Hormuz. Shipowners are steering clear of the waterway while there is no clear signal on reopening, so traffic remains thin. That supply premium feeds straight into inflation expectations, and therefore into the rate path that crypto markets hang on. (Source: CNBC<\/a>)<\/p>\n The Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled Regulation Crypto Assets, a proposed offering regime written specifically for crypto assets. Under it, issuers could offer certain investment contracts involving crypto assets without registering under the Securities Act of 1933. The proposal builds on the interpretive release of 17 March 2026, in which the SEC set out a token taxonomy of five categories: digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, payment stablecoins and digital securities.<\/p>\n The package contains two exemptions: a startup exemption for offerings of up to $5 million over a period of up to four years, and a broader fundraising exemption of up to $75 million in any twelve-month period, both with public filings and mandatory narrative disclosures to investors. After nearly a decade in which the SEC dealt with crypto mainly through enforcement and informal guidance, this is the first offering regime the regulator has tailored specifically to crypto assets. Crypto markets firmed that same week, with bitcoin breaking through $69,000 around 19 and 20 August for the first time since June. The SEC was not the only reason. In the same days the US Treasury said it would at least double its buyback operations in long-dated government bonds, and President Trump called on Congress to pass the Clarity Act. (Source: SEC<\/a>)<\/p>\n Fed Chair Kevin Warsh gave his first Jackson Hole keynote since taking office, to an audience of some 120 central bankers and economists from more than seventy countries. He called the American economy notably resilient but said he was troubled by the underlying trend in inflation, and openly left the door open to rate increases in the coming months. He also signalled a change of style: less forward guidance to markets, on the view that a quieter Fed communicating with more purpose is better placed to meet its objectives.<\/p>\n The reaction was immediate. Bitcoin had touched $81,455 earlier that day, its highest level since 15 May, then slipped to $78,400 during the speech before recovering to around $79,700. The two-year Treasury yield rose 12 basis points to 4.35%, and the probability of a hike at the 16 September meeting jumped to roughly 60% from about 35% a day earlier. Gold held above $4,550 an ounce. (Source: CoinDesk<\/a>)<\/p>\n August showed how narrow the Fed’s room for manoeuvre has become. The labour market contracted, inflation cooled to 3.4%, and the month still ended with a chair talking openly about tightening. There is no contradiction in that. Warsh pointed to inflation that stubbornly sits above target, and the war premium on oil is a significant additional source of risk within it: while the Strait of Hormuz stays shut and oil trades above $90, the energy component keeps that pressure on and the option of a hike stays open. Expectations for 16 September travelled from 55% to 42% and back to roughly 60% in the space of four weeks.<\/p>\n For crypto it was the strongest month of 2026. Bitcoin climbed from the low $60,000s to a three-month high of $81,455 and finished the last weekend of August near $78,000. US spot bitcoin ETFs drew in more than $3 billion over the month, which already made August the strongest month of 2026 before the final trading days, and the SEC proposal gave the sector a regulatory framework where it previously had the threat of enforcement. Heading into September 2026, attention turns to the Fed meeting on the sixteenth and to whether Washington and Tehran can agree terms for transit. Whichever way that goes, the management of our crypto fund<\/a> remains systematic, trend-following and algorithmic: not predicting what the Fed will do, but following the trend that results from it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crypto News: Market Update August 2026 August opened on a hopeful note. Washington signalled that a deal with Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz was within reach, and oil fell from the $100 mark where July had ended to below $80. Two weeks later none of that was left: the agreement expired on 17 August…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2344,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"callisto_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insight","category-inzicht"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/callistocapital.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/callistocapital.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/callistocapital.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/callistocapital.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/callistocapital.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2347"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/callistocapital.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2365,"href":"https:\/\/callistocapital.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347\/revisions\/2365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/callistocapital.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/callistocapital.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/callistocapital.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/callistocapital.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}12 August: inflation cools to 3.4%<\/h2>\n
17 August: oil back above $90 as Iran rules out an extension<\/h2>\n
18 August: the SEC proposes its first dedicated crypto regime<\/h2>\n
28 August: Warsh sets the tone at Jackson Hole<\/h2>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n