Bitcoin's last 3 days: $853M into ETFs and BIP-110's failed fork

Three storylines defined bitcoin's action over the past few days. The first is money: in the week ending August 7, US spot bitcoin ETFs pulled in $853.54 million in net inflows, the strongest weekly haul since mid-April. BlackRock's IBIT alone captured $693 million, about 81% of the total. Year-to-date, the funds are still roughly $4.5 billion in the red from earlier outflows.

The second storyline is price: bitcoin consolidated in a $64,000–$65,500 corridor, briefly tagging a local high just above $65,000 but failing to hold above the 50-day EMA at $64,587 — a level that has rejected every rally attempt since mid-July. A weak July US jobs report cooled bets on further Fed rate hikes somewhat, and the next major catalyst is July's CPI inflation data, due August 12. The third and most dramatic storyline is technical: at block 961,632, the bitcoin network split into two chains over the contested BIP-110 proposal, which would ban storing non-financial data — images, text — in transactions for a year, effectively targeting Ordinals inscriptions. Activation without a split required 55% miner support; actual support came in at just 2.53%. The resulting minority chain enforcing BIP-110 stalled hard: eight hours after the split, it had advanced just two blocks, versus nearly fifty on the main chain. At its current pace, the minority chain would need roughly 350 days to reach its own difficulty adjustment, versus 14 days for the main network.

“Bitcoin does not need guardians of purity. It needs guardians of neutrality.”

— Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman, MicroStrategy

• Weekly bitcoin ETF inflows: $853.54M, with $693M going to BlackRock's IBIT
• Price consolidating between $64,000–$65,500; resistance at the 50-day EMA ($64,587)
• BIP-110 fork: 2.53% miner support versus the 55% needed, minority chain nearly 50 blocks behind

Back in July, we covered how Saylor listed 110 reasons why he opposes BIP-110 — at the time, the proposal was still just a debate, and now it's led to an actual chain split. Against the backdrop of what we covered earlier — bitcoin testing the $65,000 level at the start of the week — it looks like fork uncertainty, not just ETF inflows, is a big part of why price has struggled to hold above resistance.

This piece is informational, not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset.