Bitcoin's $68K Wall: The Breakeven Bouncers Are Coming 🧱

Bitcoin climbed above $66,600 on Tuesday, reaching its highest level in more than a month and extending a roughly 15% rebound from early July lows. The rally is now approaching the $68,000 zone, a level analysts at Bitfinex identified as the key resistance that could determine whether the advance gathers momentum or stalls. That price sits near the average purchase price of investors who acquired BTC over the past five months, meaning many recent buyers may look to exit at breakeven, creating a pocket of overhead supply. The zone also coincides with bitcoin's mid-June high, where the previous rebound attempt rolled over and fell to fresh cycle lows below $58,000. "The first retest of this resistance zone is expected to catalyze a sharp response," the Bitfinex analysts wrote.

The broader picture shows a market weighed down by a cocktail of geopolitical risk, rising oil prices, and elevated Treasury yields. Bitcoin slipped to about $65,500 on Thursday, down roughly 0.7% since midnight UTC, retreating from a high near $66,700 reached Wednesday, according to CoinDesk data. Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL) and XRP also traded lower during the selloff. West Texas Intermediate futures on the NYMEX climbed to $88.60 per barrel, the highest level since June 11, signaling a potential new inflationary impulse that could complicate efforts by central banks to cut interest rates. The U.S. two-year Treasury yield jumped to 4.31%, its highest level since February 2025, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose to 4.66%, the highest since May, according to TradingView data. Higher yields raise the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets such as bitcoin.

Brent crude has jumped as much as 4% to $91.42 a barrel, its highest since June, as U.S. and Iranian strikes widened beyond military targets and rekindled inflation concerns that had eased on this month's soft U.S. price data. Axios reported that the U.S. military deployed a B-1 long-range bomber on Tuesday to strike targets linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a clear escalation in the scale of U.S. operations. The U.S. has continued its wave of airstrikes as the conflict entered its second week of open strikes. Crypto market maker Wintermute said bitcoin has failed twice this week to break above $65,000, with profit-taking and weak spot trading volumes suggesting the move lacks conviction, while the Crypto Fear & Greed Index remains in "Extreme Fear" territory.

Regulatory uncertainty has added to the cautious tone. A group of key Senate Democrats said the newest draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act "falls short" on ethics and other critical provisions, sending betting odds for the bill's passage on decentralized platforms lower, tumbling to 38%. Vetle Lunde of K33 Research said bitcoin ETF flows have stabilized but that subdued trading activity suggests the market remains in "summer slumber" mode. Bitfinex noted that spot market conditions have improved after months of weakness, with U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs shifting from persistent outflows to modest inflows, though demand has yet to fully recover. After a $425 million outflow on Monday, the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $181 million on Tuesday and $108 million on Wednesday, according to Farside Investors, a recovery Tim Sun, senior researcher at Hashkey, called "marginal" and insufficient to lift the market. Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com, called the decline "a broader bout of risk aversion rather than a deterioration in crypto-specific fundamentals," adding that bitcoin has become "increasingly sensitive to the macro environment."

Selling pressure continues to come from long-term holders realizing losses, with Glassnode data showing more than 65% of coins flowing into exchanges are long-term holders cashing out at a loss, a reading it said matches earlier bear-market phases. Sun said investors who have held for one to two years are "gradually accepting losses and exiting," a wave that has capped the recovery. BTC now accounts for nearly 67% of spot crypto trading volume, up from roughly 50% a year ago, a sign that traders remain defensive as bitcoin hovers near $64,200 on Monday, roughly flat on the day and up 3% on the week.