Bitcoin Slips Below $80,000 as Gold Retreats — But Outlets Disagree on the Why and the Numbers

3 min readPublished 25 Aug 2026

Bitcoin dropped below $80,000 during Tuesday’s Wall Street session as gold gave back recent gains alongside falling US Treasury yields. Both Cointelegraph and Crypto Briefing reported the pullback within twenty minutes of each other on August 25, 2026 — but their accounts of exactly how high Bitcoin and gold climbed before turning lower, and why, do not match.

What both outlets confirm

Cointelegraph and Crypto Briefing agree on the core sequence: Bitcoin touched a fresh multi-week high before sliding under $80,000, and gold retreated from its own recent peak at the same time, with falling bond yields cited by both as the connecting thread. Cointelegraph reported BTC/USD reaching a 14-week high before falling as low as $78,111 on Bitstamp, according to TradingView data cited by the outlet. Crypto Briefing reported that Bitcoin dipped below $80,000 after briefly touching $81,237, which it described as Bitcoin’s highest price since mid-May.

Where the numbers diverge

The two outlets’ peak prices do not line up. Cointelegraph cited a high of $81,265, sourced to TradingView data on Bitstamp. Crypto Briefing cited $81,237 without naming a data source for the figure. The two numbers are not reconciled by either report. Gold shows a similar split: Cointelegraph reported gold hitting multimonth highs of $4,697 per ounce before falling to local lows near $4,605, down nearly 2% on the day, per TradingView. Crypto Briefing described gold retreating from a three-month peak near $4,677 per ounce, again without citing a source for the number. Neither outlet accounts for the difference.

On bond yields, the two outlets also cite different maturities and levels without cross-referencing each other. Cointelegraph reported US 30-year yields dropping below 5.2%, approaching lows last seen since August 7, with last week’s surge in yields tied to levels not seen since January 2007. Crypto Briefing instead focused on the 10-year Treasury yield, which it said settled near 4.71% to 4.72%.

Two different macro stories

Cointelegraph’s account centers on Federal Reserve policy odds. It cited trading resource The Kobeissi Letter, which argued in a post on X that

the Fed cannot cut rates in this environment

and suggested direct bond-market intervention was the more likely near-term lever. Cointelegraph also reported that CME Group’s FedWatch Tool currently prices the odds of a Fed rate-hike freeze at the September meeting at 61.9%. The outlet noted US equities, including the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, posted modest daily gains of 0.2% and 0.5% respectively, even as a trade dispute simmered — Cointelegraph reported that President Trump accused Canada of “ripping off” the US in posts on Truth Social, a dispute markets largely brushed aside.

Crypto Briefing’s account centers instead on Treasury mechanics. It reported that the US Treasury said on August 19 it would at least double its buyback operations for long-dated bonds, from $2 billion to a minimum of $4 billion per operation, effective September 9 — a detail that does not appear in Cointelegraph’s reporting. Crypto Briefing also cited US national debt exceeding $40 trillion as backdrop, and reported that spot Bitcoin ETFs absorbed nearly $2 billion in inflows over recent sessions, a figure with no independent corroboration in the evidence reviewed. The outlet alone reported that Bitcoin is up roughly 28% for August, its best month since November 2024, and sits roughly 36% below its approximately $126,000 all-time high reached in October 2025.

What remains unresolved

Neither outlet links to a primary Treasury filing, ETF issuer disclosure, or exchange data confirming the buyback figures or the $2 billion inflow number. The conflicting intraday peaks for both Bitcoin and gold remain unreconciled between the two reports, and only Cointelegraph names a data source for its figure. Readers relying on a single outlet would come away with two different explanations for the same afternoon: a Fed-policy standoff on one hand, a Treasury liquidity intervention on the other.

What to watch next

Cointelegraph flagged the July Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation print and Nvidia’s earnings, both due Wednesday, as near-term catalysts, alongside the Fed’s Jackson Hole symposium running August 27 to 29. Crypto Briefing flagged September 9 as the date its reported expanded Treasury buyback operations are set to begin. Cointelegraph also noted the September Fed meeting, where CME FedWatch data currently puts hold odds at 61.9%.