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An analysis suggests Bitcoin may be more likely to turn higher after an on-chain signal that previously appeared at the end of bottoming phases in past downcycles emerged again. Crypto analyst Crypto Dan said Bitcoin’s current MVRV, or Market Value to Realized Value, an on-chain indicator showing broader unrealized gains and losses across the market, has been rising sharply. Crypto Dan added the signal was observed for the first time in the current downcycle amid Bitcoin’s recent surge, and said the same pattern appeared at the point when the bottoming phase ended in every past downcycle.

World Liberty Financial CEO Zach Witkoff disputed Tron founder Justin Sun’s claim that Sun had secured a partial victory in his legal dispute with WLFI. In a post on X, Witkoff said the court had made no ruling today. Witkoff said the court agreed with WLFI’s position that several claims brought by companies owned by Sun are subject to arbitration, and added that Sun’s lawyers also acknowledged those claims do not belong in court. Witkoff said Sun is portraying the fact that his own claims are not subject to arbitration as a "major victory," but WLFI had never argued those claims should be sent to arbitration. Instead, WLFI asked the court to dismiss all of those claims, and the court has not yet ruled on that request, Witkoff said. Witkoff also said Sun is deliberately evading service in a defamation suit filed by World Liberty in Florida.

The following are the 24-hour long/short ratios for BTC perpetual futures on the world’s three largest crypto futures exchanges by open interest: Overall: 52.07% long, 47.93% short - Binance: 53.17% long, 46.83% short - OKX: 52.98% long, 47.02% short - Bybit: 54.16% long, 45.84% short

U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs saw about $219.5 million in net inflows on Aug. 20, marking a sixth straight trading day of net inflows, according to Farside Investors. - BlackRock ETHA: +$173.3 million - Fidelity FETH: +$5.8 million - BlackRock Staking ETHB: +$35.9 million - Bitwise ETHW: +$2.8 million - VanEck ETHV: +$1.7 million

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded about $606.3 million in net inflows on Aug. 20, extending their run of net inflows to four straight trading sessions, according to Farside Investors. The total also topped yesterday’s inflow, which was the largest in three months. - BlackRock IBIT: +$503.0 million - Fidelity FBTC: +$64.7 million - Bitwise BITB: +$26.4 million - Ark Invest ARKB: +$12.2 million - Invesco BTCO: +$3.6 million - VanEck HODL: -$3.6 million

BCH has risen by 4.15% in the past five minutes on the COINNESS market. Currently, BCH is trading at $240.64.

Ripple will participate as an investor in an institutional credit fund that plans to lend RLUSD to fintech and payments companies on the XRP Ledger, CoinDesk reported. Lending platform Clearpool and credit manager Cicada Partners are also involved. Ripple’s dollar stablecoin RLUSD will be used for lending and repayments, while XRP will be used only for transaction fees and the minimum balance required to maintain accounts. The structure is designed to bring institutional lending activity onto XRPL while increasing demand for RLUSD. The service is not yet live on mainnet. The XLS-66 lending protocol and XLS-65 single-asset vault feature supporting the service are currently undergoing a vote for adoption on XRPL, according to CoinDesk. The fund’s size and Ripple’s investment amount were not disclosed.

Bhutan government addresses transferred 490.87 BTC worth $32.74 million to a new wallet over the past 24 hours, according to Onchain Lens.

The spot CVD chart is an order-book analysis chart for the BTC/USDT spot trading pair. The upper section shows the Volume Heatmap, while the lower section shows cumulative volume delta, or CVD. - The Volume Heatmap tracks trading volume at each price level, and the background color becomes brighter when the price stays in a specific range for an extended period or makes a sharp move. Brighter zones may act as support or resistance. - The CVD indicator in the lower section reflects buy and sell orders by order size, with each colored line rising as buy orders increase. The yellow line represents orders between $100 and $1,000, while the brown line represents large orders between $1 million and $10 million, among other categories.

Jack Yi, founder of LD Capital, said on X that BTC had broken decisively above its 120-day and 200-day moving averages on the daily chart and had also moved above its 20-week moving average on the weekly chart, leading Yi to conclude the bear market trend has officially ended. Yi added that the uptrend was likely to continue for the next two weeks before a pullback at some point, although the correction would likely be less than 50% of the previous advance. Yi also said the drop from $126,000 to $57,000, a decline of 56%, marked the absolute bottom, making a return to the $50,000 range unlikely, and advised traders to close leveraged long positions.

Institutional and whale investors sold 871,000 HYPE worth $64.82 million through FalconX over the past six hours, according to Lookonchain.

According to CoinGlass, the Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index has remained in negative territory for 95 straight days from May 19 through today. As of 4:00 a.m. UTC on Aug. 21, the latest reading stood at -0.0334%. The previous longest negative streak was 40 days, from Jan. 16 to Feb. 24 this year. The Coinbase Premium Index measures the Bitcoin price gap between Coinbase and global exchanges, and a prolonged negative reading suggests BTC buying demand in the U.S. market has been relatively weaker than in global markets. At the same time, the negative premium has narrowed sharply in recent readings, leading to interpretations that the BTC price gap between the U.S. and global markets has closed significantly.

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed additional charges against eight members of the Iran-based Mabna Institute, raising the total number indicted to 17, and said five of them were involved in the earlier hack of HBO that included a demand for about $6 million in BTC. According to the DOJ, Behzad Mesri had already been separately indicted on allegations that Mesri hacked HBO’s systems, stole internal data and then demanded roughly $6 million worth of Bitcoin. The DOJ said five of the newly charged defendants directly took part in that hack alongside Mesri. It added that the Mabna Institute is accused of carrying out hacking operations against U.S. and overseas universities, companies and government agencies on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, and others.

Crypto analyst Murphy said Bitcoin’s recent sharp rally was supported by a strong holder structure. Murphy said more than 2 million BTC was heavily accumulated in the $62,000-$64,000 range, leaving investors with similar cost bases and limiting selling pressure even when prices fell. During BTC’s three-day surge from $64,000 to $75,000, holdings around $63,000 barely moved, while selling pressure in the $68,000-$74,000 range also remained limited. Murphy added that some holdings have since shifted to selling after the rally, which could lead to sideways trading or a pullback.

South Korean exchange Bithumb announced it has delayed the NEXO listing for KRW trading to 6:00 a.m. UTC today. The original schedule was 4:00 a.m. UTC today.

CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer urged viewers to buy BTC less than a month after saying he planned to sell all of his Bitcoin holdings over quantum computing risks, BeInCrypto reported. On the Aug. 20 program, Cramer told a viewer asking about Bitmine (BMNR), a corporate accumulator of Ethereum (ETH), to buy BTC directly rather than investing indirectly in crypto through related stocks. Earlier, after IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said quantum computers could eventually undermine Bitcoin’s cryptographic system, Cramer said he would sell BTC. It remains unclear whether he actually sold or how much he held at the time. BTC has risen from about $63,700 when Cramer announced his plan to sell to around $74,300 now.

A whale known as "Jason leo133" on Binance expanded a BTC short position to 546.314 BTC, worth about $40.69 million, and also opened a 10,000 ETH short position worth about $23.46 million, according to on-chain analyst ai_9684xtpa. The BTC short uses 5x leverage, with an average entry price of $74,493.23 and a liquidation price of $169,388, while the ETH short uses 7x leverage, with an average entry price of $2,346.83 and a liquidation price of $7,503.57. The analyst added that the whale had previously re-entered the BTC short with 83.866 BTC, worth about $6.25 million, and has continued to increase the position.

A bill has been introduced to give South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit authority to crack down on unreported virtual asset service providers, Digital Asset reported. According to the report, 10 lawmakers including People Power Party Rep. Eom Tae-young proposed the amendment to the law on specific financial information on Aug. 20. The bill would allow anyone to report suspected violations of the law to the FIU chief. It also would allow the FIU chief to take necessary steps, including investigations and analysis, if a report is filed or if there are reasonable grounds to suspect a violation, and to file complaints with relevant investigative agencies, request investigations, or provide necessary information.

The following shows estimated liquidation volumes and position ratios for major crypto perpetual futures over the past 24 hours: - BTC: $780.87 million liquidated (94.93% shorts) - ETH: $216.85 million liquidated (72.33% shorts) - XRP: $41.46 million liquidated (61.18% shorts)

Zhu Su, co-founder of bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and founder of OPNX, said a U.S. debt crisis could spur more on-chain issuance of corporate bonds as companies seek cheaper funding, potentially reducing demand for stablecoins. In a post on X, Zhu said there is little reason to hold stablecoins with a 0% yield if the dollar is rapidly losing value, adding that holding Apple corporate bonds with a 6% yield would be preferable. Zhu also said companies would move corporate bonds on-chain to raise funds more cheaply from investors holding dollars, and stablecoin demand would decline significantly overall.

Decentralized reputation protocol Ethos Network has unveiled the tokenomics for its native token, WHUF. The token will be used for staking to vouch for other users’ credibility, trading in reputation markets, and paying protocol fees. WHUF has a total supply of 10 million tokens, allocated as follows: - Team: 28.94% - Early investors: 11.06% - Token sale: 20% - XP bonus: 2% - Ecosystem development: 5% - Foundation treasury: 10% - Bounty: 5% - Contributor rewards: 18% A total of 2 million WHUF, equal to 20% of the total supply, will be sold through an auction on Sept. 1. The auction’s price range implies a fully diluted valuation of $1 million to $99 million.

South Korean exchange Upbit announced the addition of Curve (CRV) for trading against KRW and USDT at 4:00 a.m. UTC today.

Kakao said it decided at a board meeting on Aug. 21 to split the company into newly established KakaoAI and surviving entity KakaoX through a proportional spinoff. According to Etoday, KakaoX will support growth at existing core affiliates while taking on the role of finding a second Kakao Bank, Kakao Pay and Kakao Mobility. The company presented virtual assets, physical AI and global fandom as areas for reviewing new businesses. KakaoAI plans to combine AI with advertising and commerce around KakaoTalk to create new user experiences and revenue models. Based on book value of net assets, the split ratio is 0.36 for KakaoAI and 0.64 for KakaoX.

South Korean payment gateway company Danal has joined the global stablecoin ecosystem as the first domestic PG firm to do so, stepping up its push into the digital-asset payments market, The Asia Business Daily reported. Danal said on Aug. 21 it had officially joined the global "Open Standard" ecosystem and become a key participant in Open USD (OUSD), a U.S. dollar-based stablecoin. Open Standard is a consortium backed by about 140 global companies, including Visa and Mastercard, through a shared governance structure. The initiative aims to establish a new digital finance standard through OUSD, which it describes as a neutral payment asset for digital fund settlement and transfers between institutions.

Zach Witkoff, CEO of World Liberty Financial (WLFI), denied allegations of favoritism surrounding the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's preliminary conditional approval for World Liberty Trust, which is set to issue the USD1 stablecoin. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Witkoff said Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren had argued the OCC could not review World Liberty's application fairly because of the Trump family's ties to the project. He said, however, that the OCC had granted similar conditional approvals to five rival firms nine months before World Liberty, and that DT Marks, the Trump family's holding company, had agreed not to exercise influence over World Liberty's management. Witkoff added that if final approval is granted, World Liberty would remain under ongoing OCC supervision even after President Donald Trump's term ends.