Bitcoin closed Sunday 6 September at $80,338.98 on Bitstamp, up 0.637% on the day, after a weekend in which the United States and Iran exchanged strikes at sea that analysts quoted by Al Jazeera called a “calculated escalation.” US Central Command said its forces struck three Iranian vessels — a tanker off Kharg Island, another near Jask, and an unladen vessel in the Gulf of Oman — after Iranian ballistic missiles were launched at an American aircraft carrier and a destroyer, both of which evaded them, Al Jazeera reported on Sunday morning, drawing on AP and Reuters. “If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours,” CENTCOM’s commander, Admiral Brad Cooper, said. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it had also targeted three tankers on what it called an “unauthorised route” through the Strait and warned all vessels in the Gulf that “you will be targeted.” Brent crude, which does not trade at weekends, had already closed Friday at $96.28 a barrel, its highest since 24 July against roughly $70 before the war; US diesel set a record $5.85 a gallon the same day. Marine analytics firm Kpler counted five, eleven and six ships through the Strait on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, a ten-day average of thirteen, against the twenty million barrels a day that flowed before February. That is the mainstream story, and it is the one that will meet US stocks when they reopen on Tuesday: the S&P 500 closed Friday at 7,718.60 (−0.38%), the Dow at 53,414.25 (−0.51%), gold at $4,477.20 (−1.38%) and October WTI at $91.22.
Bitcoin’s weekend, by contrast, was ordinary. Saturday’s range was $722.39, the tenth-narrowest of the year, as yesterday’s piece printed; Sunday’s was $1,319.40 — high $80,537.40, low $79,218.00 — which ranks 49th-narrowest of 249 completed sessions in 2026. Sunday’s +0.637% ranks 164th of 248 daily changes this year counting from the weakest, and its volume of 746.17 BTC was the 44th-lowest of 249. Nothing in that series says “geopolitical hedge” and nothing says “risk asset sold”; it says a market that did not trade the news. We have made this observation before — on 31 August, when Larak was struck, and in the hedge guide that keeps the running tally — and the weekend adds two more sessions to the “did not react” column. The week is another matter: the close is +3.394% on the Sunday-to-Sunday measure (30 August close $77,701.70), +2.250% month-to-date against 31 August’s $78,571.17, and −8.180% for the year against $87,496.00. At 06:10 UTC on Monday the partial daily candle read $79,768.43, down 0.710%, on a range so far of $80,430.96 to $79,527.00; Binance spot was $79,789.11.
The tranche: $20.98 above water at the close, back under by breakfast
Sunday’s close was the second since Strategy’s 8-K of 31 August above the $80,318 average the company paid for its 4,603 coins, the first having been Thursday 3 September’s $81,265.00, which settled marker H1. At $80,338.98 the tranche was in profit by $20.98 a coin, or $96,571 on the lot — a rounding error on a $370 million purchase, and the closest any 2026 Bitstamp close has come to the figure in either direction (27 August’s $80,278.98, $39.02 under, is next). It did not last: at the 06:10 partial the tranche was $2.530 million under water. For readers keeping the longer count, 39 of 2026’s 249 completed sessions have closed at or above $80,318; before September the last was 14 May. The marker on the company’s next filing, M1 — an 8-K by Tuesday 8 September disclosing at least one bitcoin bought in the week of 31 August to 6 September — grades tomorrow; the company’s recent purchase filings have come on Monday mornings, and this Monday the market is closed.
Leverage: a third day out, and the window minimum twelve coins away
Binance BTCUSDT perpetual open interest at 00:00 UTC on Monday was 105,543.713 BTC, down 711.30 (−0.669%) from Sunday’s 106,255.013. That is the third consecutive decline — −4,805.01 on Saturday, −1,657.52 on Sunday, −711.30 today — and it takes the three-day exit to 7,173.83 coins, or 6.364% of the 112,717.545 printed at 00:00 UTC on Friday 4 September — Thursday’s build, and the high of the 30-snapshot window from 9 August to 7 September. Today’s reading is 12.43 coins above the window’s minimum of 105,531.279, printed on 24 August; one more day like today and the pre-rally leverage will have been entirely unwound. Dollar open interest fell only 0.041%, from $8,479.15 million to $8,475.63 million, because the mark price rose: the identity check — coin ratio 0.99331 times mark ratio 1.00632 — gives 0.99959, matching, and implies a Monday 00:00 mark near $80,304 against about $79,800 on Sunday. Live open interest at 06:10 was 106,304.599, a few hundred coins back in. Marker G1, which asks for a 00:00 print below 100,000 in September, is 5.54% away, against 6.26% yesterday.
Funding settled at 0.002295% at 08:00, 0.002813% at 16:00 and 0.002792% at 00:00 — 3.057% annualised on the last print, against 3.930% at the same hour on Sunday. In the 116-settlement window from 16:00 UTC on 30 July, one print has been negative (Saturday 5 September 08:00, −0.000150%), 26 sat at the exchange’s 0.0100% default, and the mean is 7.083% annualised. Meanwhile the September quarterly on Binance COIN-M traded at $79,980.6 against an index of $79,772.57 at the pull — a 0.2608% premium over the 18.08 days to 25 September, or 5.266% annualised, up from 4.777% on Sunday and 2.875% on Saturday; the December contract, at $80,892.7, implies 4.699%. That leaves funding 221 basis points below the September basis, wider than Sunday’s 85. The pattern Field Guide #37 describes — perpetual leverage leaving while quarterly demand holds or rises — is the one that has been printing since Thursday, and it is the shape of a rally being financed by dated futures rather than by the crowd. Marker G2, a September basis above 8.00% on 25 September, is 273 basis points short with 18 days to run. The global long/short account ratio rose to 1.0602 from 1.0475; the top-trader position ratio fell to 2.0219 from 2.1028, the tenth-highest of the twelve daily rows since 27 August.
Hashrate, difficulty, sentiment
mempool.space’s daily hashrate series, whose rows are stamped at the end of the day they measure, prints 1,040.10 EH/s on the row stamped 7 September — that is Sunday’s figure — the second-highest of the 31 rows from 8 August to 7 September, behind 1,053.07 on the row stamped 31 August; the 31-row mean is 914.46. The recent-blocks estimate at the pull was 945.93. The difficulty period that began at block 965,664 on Saturday evening had 227 of its 2,016 blocks at our pull (11.26%), at an average interval of 8.89 minutes; the desk does not quote the projection until roughly a quarter of the period is in, which will be about Wednesday, and marker P1 (a positive adjustment at 967,680, estimated around 19 September) stays “open, not quoted.” Over the trailing week 1,056 blocks were found: Foundry USA 278 (26.3%), AntPool 184 (17.4%), F2Pool 161 (15.2%), SpiderPool 88 (8.3%), ViaBTC 79 (7.5%), SECPOOL 62 (5.9%). Recommended fees are 1 sat/vB at every priority. The Fear & Greed index printed 71 on Monday, Greed, the nineteenth consecutive Greed reading since 20 August (19 August was 46). And, because it is the day’s Bitcoin story even if it is not a price story, the Liquid sidechain has been paused since Sunday afternoon with 3,998.5 BTC sitting in an address that has promised to give most of it back; the 1 sat/vB fee environment is the one in which that conversation is being conducted, at a few hundred satoshis a message.
The ETF table and the rates file: nothing new until Tuesday
Farside’s table has no row for Monday and will not have one for the holiday. Thursday 4 September’s $174.6 million (IBIT 117.4, FBTC 57.2, ten zeros) stands as the latest print; the week of 31 August to 4 September closed at $986.7 million and September’s running total at +$770.0 million over four of its twenty-one sessions, which is where marker H2 (a positive September) sits. The Treasury file likewise stops at Thursday: 2-year 4.37%, 10-year 4.78%, 30-year 5.24%, 10-year real 2.43%. Marker H3 (30-year at or above 5.25% on 17 September) is one basis point short; I1 (real 10-year at 2.50% by 16 September) is seven. The CME FedWatch probability of a 25-basis-point hike on 16 September was quoted at 58% by Yahoo Finance and 58.4% by CryptoPotato over the weekend, up from 49% before Friday’s payrolls; marker N1 asks for 60% on the evening of 11 September.
The week that grades seven markers
Four dated events follow the holiday. Thursday 10 September, 8:30 am ET: August producer prices, consensus per CryptoPotato +0.4% headline and +0.3% core after a flat July. Friday 11 September, 8:30 am ET: August CPI, which Yahoo’s Reuters poll has at +0.4% headline and +0.2% core; that print grades N1 (FedWatch at 60% or more that evening) and O1 (the 2-year closing at least 5 basis points higher on the Treasury file), and by Friday’s close we will also know whether the tranche (marker U1, below) is above water. Tuesday 15 September, 2:15 pm ET: the Senate’s cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the Clarity Act, which grades Q1 (the vote is held) and, with a withdrawn motion counting as a fail, K1 (60 votes); yesterday’s update explains why even a yes cannot reach the President before the House leaves on the 17th. Tuesday and Wednesday 15–16 September: the Federal Open Market Committee, whose decision lands at 2:00 pm ET on the 16th and which the market currently prices as a coin-flip tilted toward a hike; L1 (a close at or above $81,265.00 on the 16th, $926 above Sunday’s) grades that evening, and I1 and H3 in the two sessions after. Readers who want to read the prints themselves before someone reads them to you have the PPI guide and the FOMC playbook.
The marker
As standing practice we mark one falsifiable claim on the day’s numbers. U1: Bitstamp’s BTC/USD daily close for Friday 11 September 2026 — CPI day — is at or above $80,318.00, Strategy’s tranche average. The reasoning for: the close has been above the figure on two of the last four sessions, the dated-futures bid is rising (basis 2.875% to 5.266% in two days), ETF demand ran $986.7 million last week, and the perpetual has already shed 6.4% of its leverage, which removes the fuel a bad CPI would burn. The reasoning against: Sunday cleared the bar by $21 and Monday morning is already $550 under it; a hot CPI with the hike probability near 60% took $1,588 off the close on 4 September, the payrolls precedent; and September’s seasonal record, which the desk does not weight but does not ignore, is negative. The bar is the tranche average precisely because it is the number the company itself will be judged against next Monday. Open count after today: nineteen — fifteen carried (H2, H3, G1, G2, I1, I2, K1, L1, M1, N1, O1, P1, Q1, R1, S1) and four new (T1 from the Liquid piece, U1 here, V1 from the guide, W1 from the Hyperliquid update).
Method: prices, funding, open interest, basis and on-chain figures in this article are pulled directly by Bitcoin Mastery at the timestamp stated — Bitstamp BTC/USD daily candles for closes, Binance BTCUSDT spot and USDT-margined perpetual for intraday, open interest, funding and account ratios, Binance COIN-M quarterly contracts for basis, mempool.space for difficulty, hashrate, pool shares, fees and individual transactions, alternative.me for the Fear & Greed series, Farside Investors’ table for ETF flows and US Treasury CMT par yields for rates. Where a third-party figure is cited we name the source and its date; where two sources disagree we print both. Every streak or extreme figure is published with the first date of its series in the same sentence.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Cryptocurrencies are volatile and you can lose money. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security, digital asset or exchange-traded fund, including MSTR, PURR or HYPE. Do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.