Bitcoin News: Bitcoin Holds Above $78,000 as Yen Breaks 160 and Dollar Strength Caps Crypto

Bitcoin traded around $78,400 in Asian morning hours Monday, down under 1% over 24 hours and up about 1% on the week, according to CoinDesk data.Solana and Dogecoin led the decliners at roughly 3% each, with Hyperliquid and XRP close behind. Ether, BNB, Zcash and Tron all sat within 2% of flat. The weekly picture splits sharply — Solana up about 8%, Dogecoin down roughly 10%.Bessent Says Yen Moves Are "Pretty Well Contained"Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described recent yen moves as "pretty well contained" and said they did not warrant a joint US-Japan intervention like last month's.The currency breached 160 per dollar and traded near that level in Tokyo on Monday. Strategists see intervention triggers starting as close as 161 and then in the 162 to 163 zone.That the yen has come this far this fast is the notable part. The July 31 operation was the first coordinated US-Japan yen buying since 1998 — the most serious currency defense in nearly three decades — and more than half those gains have already unwound.Bessent warned Friday that a disorderly yen market could feed through to higher US interest rates, which is the specific mechanism that makes this a crypto story rather than an FX one.The Yen Carry Channel Runs Through BitcoinThe yen has long funded investments in US stocks and Treasury notes. A volatile yen can trigger an upswing in bond yields, producing financial tightening that reaches Bitcoin.The transmission is straightforward. Carry trades borrow in yen at low rates to buy higher-yielding dollar assets. Sharp yen moves force those positions to unwind, which means selling the dollar assets the trade was funding. That pushes Treasury yields higher, tightens conditions, and pressures risk assets — Bitcoin included.Bessent's "contained" framing is essentially an assessment that this has not started. His Friday warning was an acknowledgment that it could.Warsh's Jackson Hole Remarks Drove the Dollar AdvanceFriday's broad dollar advance came on expectations for higher US rates after Chairman Kevin Warsh spoke at Jackson Hole.Warsh said the Fed's "predominant focus right now should be on prices," with PCE at 3.7% over 12 months and 4.1% over six. He dismissed the summer's softer prints as not indicating improved underlying trends, and said he "would be hard pressed to describe broad financial conditions as restrictive."September hike odds jumped to 42% from 35% per CME FedWatch, with StoneX putting the intraday repricing at 30% to roughly 50%.Bond investors are now pricing a Fed positioned to hike — and that same repricing is what pulled institutional money out of Bitcoin ETFs across May and June. The funds remain net negative for 2026 by roughly $2.5 billion despite August's recovery.Monday's Close Decides Whether the ETF Run SurvivedMonday is the final trading session of August, and the month's closing ETF total will show whether the inflow run survived the shift in rate expectations or ended with it.Bitcoin ETFs recorded a $201.9 million outflow Friday, ending nine consecutive sessions of net buying that had pulled roughly $2.8 billion into the products. Ethereum funds went the other way, taking in $102.1 million for a 12th straight session — three sessions longer than Bitcoin's run, and continuing through the day that broke it.August cleared $3 billion for the Bitcoin funds regardless, making it the strongest month of 2026 and roughly double April. It had needed one more session of net buying to pass October 2025 as the biggest inflow month since launch. Friday removed that.The Supply Wall Sits Directly OverheadBitcoin at $78,400 sits roughly $1,600 below the zone that matters most.Glassnode data shows nearly 8% of Bitcoin's supply was acquired between $80,000 and $82,000 — the largest concentration at any comparable range, with roughly 5% at $80,000 alone. The US spot ETF cohort's average cost basis sits in the same band, and the 50-week moving average is at $81,081, where Bitcoin was rejected last week at an $81,265 high.The Bitfinex analyst team described the setup as "a squeeze that has run into a defined population of sellers," pointing to spot demand absorbing overhead supply between $77,100 and $80,000. That places Bitcoin's current level inside the absorption zone rather than below it — the band where the question is being actively resolved rather than deferred.Absorbing that supply requires sustained spot demand rather than short covering. QCP Capital flagged that falling open interest pointed to short covering with ETF inflows supplying the genuine demand — and that demand just paused as the dollar strengthened.Friday's August payrolls report is the next variable. July printed −23,000 with May and June revised down by a combined 103,000, and Bloomberg Chief Economist Anna Wong has argued there is no modern precedent for the Fed hiking after two consecutive negative readings.