According to Fixygen, buybacks—a strategy long used by public companies to support their stock prices—are becoming one of the main tools of the cryptocurrency market.
In 2026, crypto projects have already allocated approximately $640 million to buy back their own tokens—a historic high, according to the Financial Times.
By comparison, this figure stood at about $545 million for all of 2025, and in 2024, it was just $366,000.
Nearly 90% of current buybacks are accounted for by Hyperliquid and pump.fun.
Hyperliquid allocates virtually all of the platform’s revenue toward purchasing HYPE. Against the backdrop of this policy, the token’s value has risen by approximately 70%.
The economic logic is similar to a stock buyback: a company or protocol uses its cash flow to reduce the number of tokens in free circulation and increase the economic value of the remaining ones.
However, there is a fundamental difference between a token and a stock. A stock represents an ownership stake in a company, whereas a token holder’s rights may be significantly weaker or may not confer any legal right to profits at all.
Therefore, a buyback alone does not guarantee growth. Some projects continued to lose value even after launching buyback programs.
Nevertheless, the emergence of a $640 million buyback market indicates that the cryptocurrency industry is gradually adopting tools from traditional corporate finance.
Companies that built their investment strategies around accumulating Bitcoin have lost over $80 billion in market capitalization since this model peaked in popularity in the summer of 2025.
According to Financial Times calculations, the combined market capitalization of the 50 largest Bitcoin treasury companies fell from approximately $150 billion in July 2025 to $67 billion in August 2026.
The model gained popularity thanks to Michael Saylor’s Strategy. Companies issued stocks or debt securities, used the raised funds to buy Bitcoin, and expected the market to value them higher than the cost of the cryptocurrency on their balance sheets.
As long as Bitcoin was rising, this scheme allowed companies to raise new capital in a virtually endless cycle. But BTC’s drop of about 30% from its October 2025 high disrupted the mechanism.
According to the FT, the shares of 35 companies in the group studied lost more than half their value. Some market participants have already begun selling part of their crypto reserves to service their debts.
In effect, the market has stopped automatically paying a premium simply for having Bitcoin on a company’s balance sheet. Investors are now much more closely scrutinizing a company’s debt, the cost of raising capital, and the business’s ability to fund payments without selling cryptocurrency.
According to Fixygen, Strategy remains the world’s largest corporate holder of bitcoin. As of August 23, the company held 840,447 BTC, or about 4% of the maximum possible supply of the first cryptocurrency.
At a BTC price of $77,004, its Bitcoin reserves were valued at $64.72 billion, while Strategy’s market capitalization stood at approximately $49.6 billion.
At first glance, it appears that investors value the entire company at less than the value of the Bitcoin it holds.
However, this comparison is incomplete. In addition to BTC, Strategy held $6.69 billion in dollar-denominated assets, but at the same time had approximately $6.75 billion in debt and $14.97 billion in preferred stock, which ranks higher than common shareholders in the capital structure.
After accounting for these liabilities, Strategy itself estimated the net value of its reserves at approximately $49.68 billion—nearly the same as its market capitalization.
This is precisely why the company’s mNAV ratio as of August 23 stood at around 1.01x. In other words, the huge premium that investors previously paid for the opportunity to gain indirect exposure to bitcoin through MSTR has virtually disappeared.
This is a fundamental shift in Sailor’s model: Strategy remains the world’s largest Bitcoin treasury, but its stock is increasingly valued as a financial entity with BTC, debt, and expensive preferred equity, rather than as “Bitcoin at a premium.”
According to Fixygen, the cryptocurrency market is closing out the last week of August near local highs: Bitcoin is holding steady at around $80,000 after rising above $81,000, investors are once again actively investing in spot ETFs, and the stablecoin sector continues to evolve from a primarily trading instrument into a full-fledged payment infrastructure.
On August 25, Bitcoin rose to $81,240, its highest level since mid-May. By the morning of Friday, August 28, the leading cryptocurrency had corrected to approximately $79,700; however, for the month of August, it remains up by about 26.7%, which could be its best monthly performance since the end of 2024.
Unlike many previous waves of growth, one of the key factors now is not so much speculative demand as it is investors’ concerns about U.S. government debt, the long-term value of the dollar, and the situation in the Treasury bond market.
Following the U.S. Treasury Department’s decision to increase the repurchase of long-term Treasury bonds, market participants have once again begun discussing the so-called “debasement trade”—the purchase of gold, Bitcoin, and other scarce assets as a hedge against potential currency devaluation.
Standard Chartered noted that such a policy creates precisely the macroeconomic environment for which Bitcoin was originally created. Some analysts suggest that a sustained break above the current resistance zone could pave the way to $95,000–100,000.
That said, this week was significantly calmer than the previous one. By last Friday, Bitcoin had already surged to around $77,000–78,000, posting its best weekly performance in over two years. This week, the market focused more on consolidating this gain than on launching a new upward surge.
Ether also remained relatively stable and was trading near $2,500 by the end of the week. Thus, Ethereum did not replicate the scale of Bitcoin’s August rally but continued its recovery following a weaker first half of the year.
One of the most important signals for the market was the return of funds to U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs. According to market participants’ estimates, inflows into these funds in August approached $2.4–2.5 billion, with investors directing approximately $2.5 billion into ETFs over the last seven trading sessions.
BlackRock, the largest operator of Bitcoin ETFs, believes that institutional investors are increasingly viewing Bitcoin not only as a high-risk technology asset but also as a potential diversification tool amid debt and currency risks. BlackRock’s IBIT, the largest U.S. fund, already manages over $76 billion in assets.
This is particularly important for the market following a prolonged period of capital outflows from ETFs earlier this year. The return of institutional demand significantly increases the likelihood that August’s growth will prove more sustainable than the short-lived speculative rallies of previous months.
Another significant trend of the week is the accelerating development of stablecoins.
The volume of payments made using cards pegged to stablecoins exceeded $1 billion for the first time in July. RedotPay forecasts that by 2028, the annual volume of such payments could increase approximately fourfold—to $50 billion.
Stablecoins are being used more and more actively not only within crypto exchanges but also for cross-border transfers, corporate settlements, holding dollar liquidity, and everyday payments. This market is growing particularly rapidly in Latin America and Africa, where access to dollar-denominated banking instruments is limited.
This week, another signal came from the United Kingdom: the government proposed expanding the Bank of England’s mandate to include supporting innovation in the payments sector, particularly innovations related to stablecoins and digital currencies.
Another telling development was Chelsea Football Club’s decision to make Circle—the issuer of USDC—the title sponsor of its jerseys. The logo of one of the largest dollar-pegged stablecoins will now appear on the jerseys of the English Premier League club—a level of mainstream integration that would have seemed nearly impossible for the crypto industry just a few years ago.
Consolidation is also continuing in the industry’s institutional segment.
Crypto custodian BitGo has agreed to acquire NYDIG’s institutional trading business. With this acquisition, BitGo will gain a presence in derivatives, structured products, financing, and other services for institutional clients. Approximately 30 NYDIG employees are moving to BitGo. The parties did not disclose the value of the deal.
BitGo previously went public in 2026 and raised approximately $213 million during its IPO. The acquisition of part of NYDIG signals the continued emergence in the crypto market of companies seeking to provide institutional investors with a full range of services—from asset custody to trading, settlement, and structured financing.
Regulation in the U.S., however, remains one of the main sources of uncertainty.
President Donald Trump continues to urge Congress to pass the Clarity Act, which is intended to more clearly delineate the powers of regulators and establish rules for the operation of the cryptocurrency market. The legislative process remains protracted, but the industry is already actively preparing for the midterm congressional elections.
Stand With Crypto, an organization supported by Coinbase, announced this week its endorsement of 32 candidates who have previously voted in favor of cryptocurrency legislation. According to Reuters estimates, the crypto industry as a whole has already allocated approximately $200 million to political activities as part of the 2026 election cycle.
Thus, the last week of August cemented several trends at once: Bitcoin once again reached a level of around $80,000, institutional capital returned to ETFs, stablecoins are increasingly being used for real-world payments, and the largest crypto companies continue to build infrastructure that increasingly resembles the traditional financial sector.
The main risk for the market in the coming weeks remains macroeconomic. Investors are awaiting signals from the Federal Reserve regarding interest rates. Persistently high inflation has already reignited market expectations of a potential rate hike in the U.S., which is traditionally a negative factor for cryptocurrencies.
In September, attention will focus on the Fed meeting on September 16, U.S. labor market data, and trends in U.S. Treasury yields. Provided the dollar remains weak and demand for alternative assets stays high, the $80,000–83,000 range for Bitcoin will become a key technical threshold. A sustained breakout above this level could reignite market talk of $100,000, while rising yields and a hawkish stance from the Fed could push Bitcoin back into the mid-$70,000 range
Fixygen will continue to monitor the dynamics and trends of the crypto market.
According to Fixygen, the standoff between traditional banks and cryptocurrencies is gradually changing in nature: the largest financial institutions are no longer trying to prove that they don’t need blockchain; instead, they are beginning to migrate bank deposits and payments to the very same technological infrastructure on which stablecoins operate.
One of the most significant developments in August was the creation of the BankChain Alliance in the U.S., which brought together banking associations from 39 states. The project aims to create a banking blockchain network by 2027 that will be capable of supporting tokenized deposits, stablecoins, automated settlements, and programmable payments.
In effect, small and regional U.S. banks are trying to develop their own alternative to cryptocurrency payment infrastructure, rather than ceding this market to Circle, Coinbase, and tech companies.
Major banks are moving in the same direction.
On August 4, Wells Fargo announced the launch of tokenized deposits for corporate clients. These funds are bank money recorded on the blockchain and enable round-the-clock settlements, including on weekends. The first phase involves transactions between the U.S. dollar and the British pound, and by 2027, the bank intends to expand its geographic reach and list of currencies.
The fundamental difference between a tokenized deposit and USDC or USDT lies in who the issuer is.
In the case of a traditional stablecoin, the customer holds a digital claim against a specialized issuer. In the case of a tokenized deposit, the customer still holds a bank deposit, but the infrastructure for managing it is blockchain-based.
Therefore, banks are essentially telling the crypto industry: we accept the technology, but we want to keep the money within the banking system.
Payment systems have gone even further.
Visa reported that its annual volume of transactions in stablecoins reached approximately $7 billion, and in the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEE) region, the volume of such transactions increased nearly 60-fold over the year. The company is already developing more than 160 card programs linked to stablecoins.
In July, Visa launched a dedicated platform, the Visa Stablecoin Platform, through which banks, fintech companies, and payment providers will be able to work with stablecoins within a unified infrastructure. In August, the company also expanded Visa Direct to include the ability to make payments and provide pre-funding using stablecoins.
At the same time, the use of stablecoins directly by consumers is growing rapidly.
According to an estimate by the payment company RedotPay, cited by Reuters, spending via cards linked to stablecoins could rise to approximately $50 billion per year by 2028. As early as July 2026, the monthly volume of such card payments exceeded $1 billion for the first time.
The most important factor driving changes in the market is regulation in the U.S.
On August 17, the U.S. Department of the Treasury published a new draft rule for implementing the GENIUS Act. Starting January 18, 2027, the issuance of payment stablecoins in the U.S. will generally be permitted only to licensed issuers. Starting in July 2028, U.S. service providers will also face restrictions on offering users stablecoins issued without the appropriate license.
As a result, the market is entering a completely new phase.
Just a few years ago, the question went something like this: Will cryptocurrencies replace banks?
Now the question has changed: Who will control the digital dollar—crypto companies, banks, or payment systems?
This is precisely where one of the major financial competitive battles of the next few years may unfold.
Circle and Tether have created a model of dollar-backed money that can be transferred around the clock and almost instantly. Banks have realized that customers truly want this functionality, but they are unwilling to hand over the deposits—on which the traditional banking model is based—to tech companies.
As a result, the market is gradually moving toward the coexistence of three forms of the digital dollar.
The first is traditional bank money.
The second is tokenized bank deposits, which Wells Fargo and other banks are transferring to the blockchain.
The third is stablecoins, which exist outside the traditional deposit account system but are becoming increasingly integrated into the financial system under new regulatory conditions.
The winner here has not yet been determined. But one conclusion is already clear: the blockchain infrastructure itself is no longer just an experiment in the cryptocurrency sector.
If the largest banks and Visa begin to process payments 24/7 via blockchain, the major technological debate of the past decade will effectively come to an end.
Blockchain hasn’t destroyed banks—banks have begun to embrace blockchain.
Sources: U.S. Treasury, Wells Fargo, Visa, Reuters, publications from August 4–26, 2026.
According to Fixygen, Bitcoin returned above the $80,000 mark in late August, posting one of its strongest weekly rallies in recent months, however, the current movement differs from typical cryptocurrency rallies—a significant portion of the demand is coming through regulated exchange-traded funds, and the U.S. government bond market has become one of the key macroeconomic factors.
On Tuesday, August 25, Bitcoin rose above $80,000 and reached a three-month high. According to Reuters, the leading cryptocurrency has gained about 28% since the beginning of August, which could be its best monthly performance since November 2024.
One of the triggers for the rally was action taken by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. On August 19, the Treasury announced that, starting September 9, it would increase the volume of buyback operations for long-term Treasury bonds to support market liquidity. The decline in yields on long-term securities and the simultaneous weakening of the dollar boosted demand for alternative assets, primarily gold and Bitcoin.
But unlike previous cryptocurrency cycles, this demand is now clearly visible within the traditional financial system.
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have shifted from a series of outflows to a steady inflow of capital. According to Farside Investors, the funds saw net inflows of $297.5 million on August 17, $189.3 million on August 18, $517.2 million on August 19, $606.3 million on August 20, and $307.5 million on August 21.
After the weekend, the trend continued: on August 24, the funds attracted another $337.6 million, and on August 25, $314.3 million. Thus, over seven consecutive trading days, net inflows totaled approximately $2.57 billion.
The BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust remains the primary recipient of these funds. On August 20 alone, the IBIT received approximately $503 million; on August 24, $208.9 million; and on August 25, another $284.4 million. According to Farside data, the fund’s cumulative net inflow since its launch has already exceeded $62.9 billion.
This strong momentum was further amplified by the closing of short positions. The market was approaching an August reversal after a prolonged decline from the 2025 all-time highs, so a significant portion of traders were bracing for a further drop. The sharp rally forced participants to close out short positions, which added mechanical demand for Bitcoin.
As a result, Bitcoin rose by approximately 23% over the week, while Ethereum gained nearly 29%. After reaching the $80,000 mark, Bitcoin pulled back to the $78,000–$79,000 range, indicating profit-taking following the rapid rally.
In our view, the most interesting development is not the $80,000 mark itself, but the nature of the current demand.
In previous cycles, Bitcoin rose primarily on expectations within the cryptocurrency market itself. Now, it is increasingly becoming part of the same macroeconomic narrative as gold: investors are buying assets whose supply cannot be increased by a decision from a central bank or government.
The difference lies in volatility. While gold remains a conservative safe-haven asset, Bitcoin is effectively becoming a high-risk, highly volatile bet on the weakening of the dollar’s purchasing power.
At the same time, ETFs have made this strategy much more accessible to institutional investors. To increase their exposure to Bitcoin, a fund or asset management firm no longer needs to deal with crypto exchanges or store digital assets on its own—it’s enough to purchase an exchange-traded instrument from BlackRock, Fidelity, or another major asset manager.
That is why capital flows into ETFs are becoming one of the most important indicators of the market’s future direction. If the inflow of several hundred million dollars per day continues, it could provide Bitcoin with fundamental demand even after the short squeeze ends.
If, however, ETFs return to outflows, the current movement risks turning out to be primarily a rapid recovery rally following a sharp decline.
Thus, the near future will show whether Bitcoin has established itself in a new role—not merely as a speculative cryptocurrency, but as an institutional instrument for betting on the dollar, liquidity, and U.S. monetary policy.
