Bitcoin Nears $80,000 as Hong Kong Hosts Bitcoin Asia 2026

Bitcoin traded above $79,000 in Hong Kong on Thursday, opening the day 0.6% higher than Wednesday and putting the cryptocurrency on pace for its best August since 2017 — just as Asia's largest Bitcoin gathering opened its doors across town at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Bitcoin opened at $79,026.75 Thursday and climbed to $79,317.69 by mid-morning in New York, according to Yahoo Finance data. The coin is up 14.1% over the past week and 20.9% over the past month, though it remains down roughly a third from its October 2025 record above $126,000.

Bitcoin Asia 2026, organized by BTC Inc., runs through Friday in Wan Chai and is expected to draw more than 10,000 attendees from over 125 countries. The timing puts Hong Kong's two SFC-licensed retail crypto platforms, HashKey Holdings (3887.HK) and OSL Group (0863.HK), whose trading fees and volumes move with the crypto cycle, at the center of a rally whose next leg now depends on Washington: the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole symposium opens the same day, with new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivering his first keynote there on Friday.

The rally traces back to an Aug. 19 White House meeting where President Donald Trump pressed Congress to pass the Clarity Act, followed by a U.S. Treasury pledge to double its long-term bond buybacks — a combination that triggered a short squeeze liquidating more than $1 billion in bearish crypto bets within an hour. Prices climbed from about $65,000 to briefly above $81,000 last week before easing back.

Traders are pricing in further gains but not certainty: on Polymarket, contracts betting Bitcoin closes August above $80,000 traded near 66 cents on the dollar Thursday, implying roughly two-in-three odds. Standard Chartered forecast Bitcoin could reach $100,000 by year-end, citing the shallow depth of the recent bear market.

Warsh's Friday remarks on financial innovation and digital payments will be the next test of whether the rally holds through the weekend.