GS Lee GS Crypto Weekly Recap Macro Heavy 9 Sep 2026

GS Lee - GS Crypto Weekly Recap Macro Heavy 9 Sep 2026 Kenny Lee · Goldman Sachs · Associate, FICC & Equities, Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Wed 9 Sep 2026, 4:32am ET

Another macro-driven week dominated price action. Encouraging Fed commentary from Governor Waller saw BTC rally to just below $82.2k on 3 September, retesting the May highs, before an upside surprise in the August employment report (GIR) reversed the move, with BTC retracing back to $78k beginning this week. Waller's comments were followed by the largest single-day BTC ETF inflow since January, at $729m (Bloomberg), while Friday's stronger employment report pushed market-implied September rate- hike expectations to ~60% (GIR).

Nevertheless, U.S. spot BTC ETF flows still registered another strong week, with $984m in net inflows (Bloomberg). BTC's recent rally has coincided with stronger demand for safe-havens such as gold and CHF, against a backdrop of U.S. Treasury intervention in foreign exchange and long-dated Treasuries (GIR), while last week's price action was highly sensitive to macro developments pertaining to policy rate expectations. In standard deviation terms since June 30th, BTC has been one of the strongest performing assets globally, ranking fourth overall behind three commodity exposures (Figure 1). Even with the retracement after last Friday, BTC's 50-day moving average has now crossed above the 200-day moving average (Figure 2).

This week and next week remains a dense calendar for crypto, both on the macro side and idiosyncratically: Wednesday sees the commencement of treasury buybacks, while we get the CPI print on Friday. At the same time, the market is moving closer to the procedural vote on the CLARITY Act, scheduled for 15 September, less than 24 hours after the Senate reconvenes. That same window coincides with the September FOMC meeting on 15-16 September.

Last week saw $984m in net inflows for U.S. spot BTC ETFs, while yesterday brought $47m in outflows, together bringing year-to-date cumulative flows for BTC ETFs to -$984m (Figure 3). While still negative on the year, the figure is narrowing meaningfully.