Although it has rebounded by $5,000 since its July 1 low at under $58,000, bitcoin remains in a highly pressured market structure that has halted each major breakout attempt.

There are good reasons for that, of course, as multiple factors have aligned to keep it suppressed. Here are five of them.

Macro Landscape

The first reemerged yesterday when the US and Iran broke the ceasefire and initiated new attacks against each other in the Middle Eastern region. The actual threat came hours later when, during a NATO meeting, US President Donald Trump said he believes the memorandum of understanding between the two nations is over.

A new wave of attacks followed earlier this morning before Trump claimed, once again, that Iran wanted a peace deal ‘badly’ and had resumed contact. However, similar statements have been made multiple times in the past, but a deal is yet to be reached.

The second macro reason comes from the Federal Reserve, which continues to refuse to lower interest rates. Moreover, recent reports indicated that several Fed officials considered raising the rates in one of the next FOMC meetings. They justified this with the war’s fallout, as oil prices continue to rise and inflation is jumping in tandem. Similar moves tend to increase the pressure on risk-on assets, such as bitcoin and the altcoins.

Strategy, ETFs, and Coinbase

Aside from the aforementioned macro reasons, the tighter landscape around bitcoin is not flourishing either. Perhaps the most painful one comes from Michael Saylor’s Strategy. The company that has consistently accumulated BTC over the last five years and enhanced its purchases in late 2024 sold twice in the past couple of months. The last one, announced earlier this week, was even more worrisome as it was for over 3,500 units.

The ETFs are the fourth overall reason. They lost over $8 billion from the total cumulative flows in just two months. Some weekly numbers set anti-records with over $1.5 billion leaving in just five trading days. Although they managed to turn green in three out of the last four business days, the demand still lacks, and BTC would need a major trend reversal to change its trajectory.

The last key factor that we will discuss in this article is the Coinbase Bitcoin Premiums Index. The metric measures the difference between BTC on the largest US exchange and the global average. In general, if it’s positive, it means that the demand for the asset in the States is higher, and vice versa.

The reality shows that it hasn’t been positive for a very long time. Recent data provided by Wu Blockchain noted that the metric had been in a negative state for a record 50 consecutive days. The previous anti-record was again in 2026 and lasted for 40-days – from January 16 to February 24. Once it flipped, BTC went from $64,000 to $76,000 in about a month.

Source: CryptoPotato