Bitcoin staged its strongest rally since May, rising from roughly $64,000 in late July to briefly above $80,000 on August 25–26. A record short squeeze, steady ETF inflows, hints of Treasury bond buybacks that could lower yields, and momentum supported the move. Yet crypto stocks diverged sharply because second-quarter earnings, rather than Bitcoin’s rally, determined company-specific returns. Bullish jumped 46% after revenue increased 62% year over year, EBITDA exceeded estimates by a wide margin, and the company introduced a tokenized share-trading platform on its own exchange. Metaplanet, Circle and BitGo each gained close to 36%; Metaplanet reported 134% revenue growth, disclosed a new BlackRock stake and seeded the Superplanet Bitcoin treasury vehicle with 2,100 BTC. Circle benefited from broader demand for stablecoin (crypto tokens designed to track stable assets) and infrastructure exposure that also supported Coinbase, while BitGo rebounded technically after months of class-action pressure and deep price-target cuts, helped by a 79.6% year-over-year revenue beat and short covering from oversold levels. Weak results overrode Bitcoin’s broader momentum. Cipher Mining fell 33% after revenue dropped 43% year over year to $24.8 million, missing the $32 million forecast, while a new New York moratorium on hyperscale data centers increased pressure on its artificial-intelligence strategy. Hut 8 declined 27% despite 81% revenue growth after a $177 million net loss tied to unrealized asset losses shifted attention to AI data-center execution risk. Bitmine rose 32% on its Ethereum-treasury expansion and staking (locking crypto to earn rewards) income story. Core Scientific slid 24% after the collapse of its CoreWeave merger earlier in the year, as a $1.16 billion quarterly loss overshadowed a new AMD data-center partnership. CleanSpark dropped roughly 20% after an August 6 earnings miss and funding concerns surrounding its $6.6 billion Georgia AI data-center lease. An August 29, 2026 post from 10x Research also attributed Bitcoin’s move to the short squeeze, ETF inflows and Treasury buyback hints.