# BTC recovers from a Sunday long flush to near $77.7K > Bitcoin fell to $75,550.89 early Sunday as forced selling flipped to longs, then bought the dip back to about $77,697 — above Saturday's settle. ETF desks stay shut until Monday. - **Source:** https://ptycoin.com/en/posts/2026-08-23-btc-recovers-sunday-long-flush/ - **Published:** 2026-08-23 - **Category:** Markets - **Author:** Lucía - **Tags:** bitcoin, etf, fear-greed, ethereum, institutional - **Also published in:** [Español](https://ptycoin.com/es/posts/2026-08-23-btc-recovers-sunday-long-flush/) --- The weekend flush came, and then it got bought. Bitcoin printed **$75,550.89** early Sunday on [Crypto.com Exchange](https://crypto.com/exchange) — the low of a session whose forced selling was longs, not shorts — and by about **22:13 UTC** on **August 23** it was back near **$77,697**, roughly **$2,146** off that low and about **$623** above Saturday's **$77,074.12** settle. The 1D candle is still open. ## Friday locked $78K, Sunday sold it, Sunday took it back Walk the settled candles on Crypto.com's BTC/USDT pair. [Thursday](/en/posts/2026-08-21-etf-inflow-606m-aug-20-ibit/) settled **$73,026.02** after tagging **$73,410.93**. Friday opened on that print, ran **$73,014.49–$79,525.99**, and settled **$78,344.39**. Saturday opened on Friday's close, tagged **$78,832.47**, printed a **$76,489.55** low, and settled **$77,074.12**. Sunday's still-forming candle opened at Saturday's settle, sank to **$75,550.89** — undercutting Saturday's low by about **$939** — and then recovered the whole move, tagging **$78,059.40** before easing to the current mark. That high is still about **$285** short of Friday's settle, so the week's best print has not been retaken. But the day is now green against Saturday, which is the opposite of where it sat twelve hours ago. Ethereum traced the same round trip. Friday settled **$2,516.47** after tagging **$2,547.84**. Saturday settled **$2,422.37**. Sunday sank to **$2,355.30**, then recovered to about **$2,462** at the same snapshot — roughly **$40** above Saturday's close, with a session high of **$2,485.19**. ## The mix flipped, then the bid turned up The week's first impulse was mechanical. [CoinDesk](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/08/20/bitcoin-breaks-out-of-six-week-range-tops-usd71-000-as-usd3-billion-in-shorts-get-wiped-out) put Wednesday's short liquidations at about **$3 billion** over 24 hours against **$263.5 million** on the long side, with Bitcoin about **$1.67 billion** of that total and Ether **$1.14 billion**, more than **$1 billion** clearing in a single hour. [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-19/bitcoin-surges-most-since-march-ahead-of-white-house-meeting) called it the biggest wave of short liquidations in records going back to 2021: more than **$1 billion** of Bitcoin shorts in about an hour, and **$2.7 billion** of bearish bets across crypto tokens. That flush sat on a policy spark. The [U.S. Treasury](https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0607) said on August 19 it would at least double liquidity-support buybacks of longer-dated nominal coupons, from a **$2 billion** maximum to at least **$4 billion** per operation starting **September 9**. [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-treasury-double-sizes-some-debt-buyback-operations-least-4-billion-2026-08-19/) noted the 30-year yield had just printed its highest since 2007. Once the six-week range high near **$67,000** gave way, shorts that had faded every approach were force-bought into thin supply. The weekend ran that engine in reverse, and then stalled it. [Chaincatcher, citing CoinGlass](https://www.chaincatcher.com/en/article/2284732), put the rolling 24-hour liquidation total near **$995 million** as of about **00:56 UTC** on August 23, with **$721 million** of it longs and **$274 million** shorts, across about **214,000** accounts. [TechFlow's later CoinGlass snapshot](https://www.techflowpost.com/en-US/newsletter/133109) at **05:25 UTC** had the same rolling window down to **$365 million** as Saturday's larger flush aged off, and a four-hour burst of **$115 million** that was more than **90 percent** longs. Those readings both land *before* Sunday's low. The leverage that was going to be closed was largely closed by mid-morning UTC, and what followed — a $2,100-odd recovery on a weekend tape — is what a market does when the forced sellers have finished and the remaining flow is voluntary. Rolling windows move, and a thin book cuts both ways. ## The climb, the flush, and the round trip The series pairs settled daily closes (and Sunday's still-forming candle) with the [Crypto Fear & Greed Index](https://alternative.me/crypto/fear-and-greed-index/). Price left the $64,000s on Wednesday, locked the $78,000s on Friday, gave a slice back through Saturday, and has spent Sunday reclaiming most of it. *BTC price vs the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, August 16–23. Friday settled $78,344 after tagging $79,526. Saturday settled $77,074. Sunday's still-open candle is an intraday read as of ~22:13 UTC, not a settled close. Sources: [Crypto.com Exchange](https://crypto.com/exchange) 1D candles and [alternative.me](https://alternative.me/crypto/fear-and-greed-index/).* The composite read **72** (Greed) on Friday, **71** on Saturday, and **66** on Sunday. Last Monday it was still **31** (Fear). Note the gauge cooled six points from the week's peak on a day price finished higher than it started — sentiment surveys lag a tape that moved twice in one session. ## Cash desks stay dark until Monday U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs do not create or redeem shares on Saturday or Sunday. [Farside Investors](https://farside.co.uk/btc/) already printed Friday: **+$307.5 million**, IBIT **+$239.3 million**, taking the five cash days from August 17 through 21 to **$1,917.8 million**. [Ether products](https://farside.co.uk/eth/) added **+$184.0 million** on Friday and **$692.6 million** for the same week. Those rows are settled. They do not update again until the **August 24** cash session. The weekend tape leaves that sheet untouched, which is what makes it worth watching. With authorized participants offline, nothing structural was buying the low — no creation basket, no rebalancing flow. Sunday's **$75,550.89** print sits about **$2,793** under Friday's settle and still **$12,650** above last Sunday's **$62,900.42** close, and it got bought back inside a single session by whatever is left trading on a weekend. Friday's cash row and Friday's settle are already in the book. What Sunday adds is a test the ETF sheet cannot record: the first real drawdown since the breakout was absorbed without institutional plumbing open. An intraday mark near **$77,697** can still finish the day above or below where it sits now, and Monday's cash session is where the wrappers get their say. Description only, not a recommendation to buy or sell the coin or the wrappers. --- ## Keep reading - [How to read a block explorer and verify a transaction](https://ptycoin.com/en/posts/2026-07-07-read-block-explorer-verify-transactions/index.md): A block explorer is the public receipt for every on-chain move. Learn how to look up a transaction ID, read confirmations, and confirm funds arrived at the right address. - [How to practice a seed phrase restore before you need it](https://ptycoin.com/en/posts/2026-08-18-practice-seed-phrase-restore/index.md): A written seed phrase is only a backup after you prove it restores the same wallet. Practice the restore on a spare or wiped device before real funds depend on it. - [Self-custody without a single point of failure](https://ptycoin.com/en/posts/2026-08-10-self-custody-without-single-point-of-failure/index.md): A hardware wallet can generate a key badly. Build a self-custody setup that survives a vendor bug: verified backups, your own entropy, passphrases, and multi-vendor multisig. --- Source: PTYcoin — https://ptycoin.com/en/posts/2026-08-23-btc-recovers-sunday-long-flush/. Free to read and cite with attribution to ptycoin.com. AI-usage terms: https://ptycoin.com/en/ai-usage/