Bitcoin closed August 2026 up nearly 25%, giving the month a result that has not appeared in comparable post-peak years of 2014, 2018, and 2022.
Ash Crypto pointed to the unusual monthly candle on September 1, noting that the latest close breaks a pattern that has accompanied Bitcoin’s previous bear-market phases.
Bitcoin Breaks an August Pattern
Ash Crypto’s chart, based on Bitstamp data and using a logarithmic scale, compares August performances after Bitcoin’s major cycle highs. August 2014 fell about 18% after the 2013 peak, August 2018 lost roughly 9% after the 2017 peak, and August 2022 dropped some 14% following the 2021 high. However, this year, things went the other way.
Bitcoin started the month in the low $60,000s and climbed above $81,000 before finishing at about $78,600, producing a monthly gain of 24.95%, according to CoinGlass data. Ash Crypto described it as “BITCOIN JUST CLOSED AUGUST GREEN FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN A BEAR MARKET.”
The distinction is important, since the chart does not establish that BTC has entered a new bull market. Instead, it shows that August behaved differently from the same point in the previous three post-peak cycles. Bitcoin’s last all-time high was just past $126,000 in October 2025, leaving the asset well below that level despite the August recovery.
Furthermore, the flagship cryptocurrency also had its best August since 2017, when the month closed up more than 65%.
CoinGlass data back to 2017 shows how unusual that stretch has been. Outside of the aforementioned 65% gain in 2017 and 2021’s 13.8% jump, every August in between finished red, including two straight double-digit losses in 2022 and 2023, with this year snapping that run.
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Besides August ending up positively, the third quarter is also shaping up nicely, with the same CoinGlass data showing it’s in the green by nearly 33%, although there’s still one month to go.
That uptick is only bettered by the same period in 2017 that saw BTC’s value go up more than 80%, and it would take an incredible run in September to bring Q3 2026 anywhere near that.
Price Action as September Starts
Bitcoin dipped below $77,000 as fresh attacks in the Middle East revived geopolitical tension, then clawed back most of that loss soon after.
That follows a productive patch last week, when the OG cryptocurrency pushed past $81,000 to hit its highest level in over three months, only to get rejected after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s hawkish remarks at Jackson Hole.
At the time of writing, it was trading near $78,000, after barely moving either way in 24 hours. Although that price reflected a loss of about 2.5% for the week, it was still up more than 23% over the past month.
Dominance over the rest of the crypto market has climbed above 58%, with a market cap near $1.57 trillion. Zoomed out further, BTC remains down close to 29% for the year and more than 38% below its October 2025 ATH.
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