Bitcoin cemented its position as the dominant digital asset over the past week, absorbing two notable stress tests while spot ETF inflows reached their strongest level since April. According to the latest Digital Assets Thoughts of the Week, US spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in more than $850 million last week, helping BTC hold above $65,000 after starting July near $58,000.
The week featured two distinct challenges. The BIP-110 fork attempt was described as a governance test for the Bitcoin network. It stalled within hours after attracting support from barely 2% of miners, while the main chain continued uninterrupted. By contrast, the Coldcard breach — one of the largest hardware wallet exploits on record at more than $100 million — was not a failure of Bitcoin itself, but of a single infrastructure vendor. A firmware flaw dating back to 2021 quietly weakened the randomness used to generate private keys, leaving thousands of security-conscious holders exposed despite following best practices.
The custody debate featured prominently. The analysis argued that self-custody does not remove risk but concentrates it on the individual, who must correctly manage key generation, firmware, backups and inheritance indefinitely. Regulated custody introduces a counterparty, but a supervised one, and the article suggested that a maturing market is one where investors can choose the custody model whose risks they are genuinely equipped to manage.
Nansen co-founder and CEO Alex Svanevik offered a long-term bullish view, saying he does not think Bitcoin will ever go back below $60,000. He framed Bitcoin as “the counterpoint to the central bank’s endless printing of money” and said a $1 million per Bitcoin valuation in 2030 is “definitely within the realm of possibility.” Svanevik noted Bitcoin tends to produce higher lows and roughly four-year run-ups, and that its performance is tied to broad liquidity in financial markets.
Gadi Chait, head of investments at Xapo Bank, added that Bitcoin is fundamentally a liquidity-sensitive asset. He said long-term holders would view the latest CPI print through the lens of what it signals for future interest rates and liquidity, rather than the headline figure itself. A result making looser monetary policy more likely would be constructive for BTC, while a higher-for-longer outlook would act as a headwind.
Bitfinex’s market analysis highlighted a rangebound structure. The largest concentration of holders within a narrow $3,000 range kept moving between profit and loss, while addresses holding more than 1,000 BTC reached a 2026 high of 3.06 million BTC as of 8 August. The firm said upside requires acceptance above the $65,021–$65,510 band on a daily close, and that two daily closes above $68,300 would end the structure entirely. Key signals to watch include ETF flow continuation, cohort behavior on any test of $62,000–$63,000, and the rate reaction itself.
