The 3 catalysts that could define bitcoin's next move

Bitcoin’s $BTC$78.645,53 next move depends on three important macro events lined up for the rest of the week.

The first is July’s U.S. personal consumption expenditures (PCE) reading, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, scheduled for release at 8:30 a.m. ET. According to FactSet’s consensus forecasts, economists expect the core reading, which excludes food and energy, to come in at 3.2% year-on-year and 0.18% month-on-month, compared with 3.3% and 0.13% in June.

A hotter-than-expected print could revive concerns that Fed will raise interest rates and give $BTC and the wider crypto market reason to decline. Bitcoin has already pulled back to under $79,000, with widely tracked technical indicators, such as the relative strength index (check the Daily Signal) pointing to overbought conditions following a seven-day surge to over $80,000.

Bond markets are currently pricing in close to a 38% chance of the Fed raising interest rates by 25 basis points in September, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool.

“Attention is now on July PCE inflation and Q2 GDP data, followed by Jackson Hole,” Vikram Subburaj, CEO of India-based, FIU-registered exchange Giottus, said in an email. “Markets currently see roughly a 60% chance that the Fed holds rates at 3.50%-3.75% in September.”

Investors should avoid chasing recent gains and should instead prioritize staggered entries, small positions and controlled leverage, Subburaj said.

The second data point to watch is AI bellwether Nvidia’s NVDA$213,78·No fechamento second-quarter earnings, due for release after market hours Wednesday. A big beat could ease concerns over AI debt-fueled capex spending and support risk-taking across financial markets. The 90-day rolling correlation coefficient between bitcoin and NVDA has largely been positive and higher than 0.5 since early 2025, according to data source TradingView.

And on Friday, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium will be watched closely by traders, in the wake of the U.S. Treasury secretary’s recent plan to boost buybacks of longer-duration bonds.

The Treasury appears to be trying to tame rising yields, while Warsh has preferred to let markets express themselves. The question is whether he will now change his tune and back the Treasury’s moves, which have been widely cited as a catalyst for $BTC’s surge. Stay alert!