Best crypto to watch in August 2026

Bitcoin (BTC) held the $63,000 level at the end of July, up roughly 7% for the month, but it wasn't even the best performer among the majors. 

Ether (ETH) climbed nearly 20% over the same stretch, pushing the ETH/BTC ratio to 0.030. It's the highest level since April. 

These events set the stage for August: an expected Fed decision, a contested Bitcoin protocol proposal, a crypto bill racing the Senate's recess clock, and a long-delayed altcoin ETF pathway about to open.

1. Bitcoin (BTC)

Compared to stocks, BTC’s reaction was muted after the Federal Reserve's July FOMC meeting delivered a widely expected outcome. The FOMC voted 9-3 to hold rates steady at 3.50% to 3.75% — the fifth consecutive hold.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's post-meeting statement again withheld forward guidance, consistent with his ‘strategic ambiguity’ approach, leaving markets largely in the dark on September's likely path. 

The next FOMC meeting falls on September 15 to 16, with Warsh's Jackson Hole speech on August 27 to 29 the more immediate event to watch for any shift in tone.

Within the network, BIP-110, a proposed one-year soft fork that would temporarily restrict non-financial data (Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens, Runes) from Bitcoin transactions, approaches its mandatory signaling window in the first half of August. 

Major mining pools have shown little movement toward supporting it. Michael Saylor has called it "a bad idea”. Activation still appears unlikely given the low signaling, but the governance dispute it has surfaced (i.e., who gets to decide changes to Bitcoin's core rules) may persist regardless of the technical outcome.

On flows: After a seven-day, $981 million inflow streak through July 23 (the longest since October 2025), spot BTC ETFs snapped that run with a $225 million outflow on July 24 as renewed Middle East-related tensions weighed on risk sentiment. The week still closed positive overall. Cumulative 2026 net flows remain negative by roughly $4.8 to 5.4 billion; this year's recovery is still working against a deep hole dug during May and June's outflow rout.

Levels: Resistance sits at $65,500 to $66,500. The short-term holder cost basis near $69,000 is the level several analysts flag as the threshold for a durable recovery. Support holds at $61,750 to $62,360, with $58,190 (June's 21-month low) the critical floor below that.

2. Ether (ETH)

ETH enters August around $1,890 to $1,970, having recovered strongly from its July low near $1,563. 

The token was the standout performer of the month among the majors: ETH gained close to 20% in July against BTC’s roughly 7%, pushing the ETH/BTC ratio to 0.030, its highest reading since April.

The Glamsterdam upgrade — Ethereum's most significant protocol change since The Merge — was expected around end of August. But the most current tracking data shows the internal target has since slipped toward mid-September. The upgrade still headlines two major changes: EIP-7732 (moving block-building on-chain) and EIP-7928 (enabling parallel transaction processing), together targeting a near-tripling of Layer 1 capacity and meaningfully lower fees. 

No mainnet date is locked, and slippage into Q4 remains a real possibility.

ETH's largest treasury holder, Bitmine, saw its latest accumulation pushing its ETH treasury towards its 6 million target. Reaching that milestone would pivot BitMine from a highly dilutive share-issuing company into a self-sustaining one, generating an estimated $247 million annually through staking via its MAVAN platform rather than relying on continued equity raises. 

BMNR shares have fallen sharply from last year's highs even as the ETH position has grown.

Levels: Support sits at $1,800 to $1,850 (the 50-day EMA). The resistance reading is at $1,960 to $2,000; a sustained close above $2,000 may open a path toward the $2,100 to $2,150 zone.

3. XRP

At the tail end of July, XRP trades around $1.05 to $1.11 as the CLARITY Act's already narrow path to 2026 passage narrowed further. 

The US Senate shelved the bill and prioritized a backlog of federal nominations and foreign relations, ahead of the chamber's recess beginning around August 7 to 8. The bill still needs 60 floor votes and at least seven Democratic crossovers, and with little floor time remaining before recess; prediction market odds of the bill’s passing before the end of the year dipped below 30%. 

Industry watchers now see September's brief return session, constrained by approaching midterm election politics, as the more realistic window, with a real risk the bill slips into 2027 if that window is missed too.

On the institutional side, XRP ETFs have accumulated approximately $1.48 billion in cumulative inflows since their November 2025 launch, though flows have turned choppier in recent weeks. 

Wallets holding more than 10,000 XRP have climbed to an all-time high of 332,230, growing consistently through the entire 2026 drawdown.

Levels: Resistance stands at $1.20, then $1.30. Support is near the $1.00 psychological level, with $0.80 to $0.67 the next zone down if that fails.

4. Solana (SOL)

SOL trades in the $74 to $77 range at the end of July, still down significantly from January's high, as its Alpenglow consensus upgrade continues moving through a rollout window spanning August through October. 

The upgrade replaces Solana's current consensus components with two new systems, Votor and Rotor, targeting a reduction in transaction finality from roughly 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds. 

Solana's real-world asset volume is fast becoming the network's strongest fundamental narrative of 2026. Tokenized asset transfer volume hit $8.68 billion over a 30-day period as of early July, more than double the prior month, while quarterly tokenized asset volume for Q2 reached a record $5.8 billion — driven heavily by tokenized equities, including roughly $770 million in SpaceX share volume alone in June. 

Solana now represents approximately 95% to 97% of all on-chain tokenized equity trading activity across every blockchain, and its RWA ecosystem has grown from roughly $1.4 billion at the start of 2026 to a record $3.62 billion by early July. 

Institutional participation continues building alongside it: BlackRock has deployed over $600 million on-chain via Securitize, and Western Union has selected Solana for its stablecoin settlement platform serving more than 150 million customers.

Levels: Support sits at $78.54, with a break below $79.71 opening a path to $67.50. Resistance is at $89.20, with a confirmed move above $92.34 targeting $107.

5. Cardano (ADA)

ADA trades around $0.16 to close July, still deep in a technical downtrend and trading below every major moving average. 

Two developments put it back on the radar for August. On July 20, Cardano activated a hard fork for the first time in its history triggered entirely by community vote rather than a company controlling the activation. It was a notable change for a network that has often faced criticism over centralization concerns.

Secondly, August 9 marks six months since CME's Cardano futures launched, which opens eligibility for the SEC's streamlined 75-day spot ETF review process under generic listing standards.

Ouroboros Leios, a scaling protocol founder Charles Hoskinson has called the largest upgrade in Cardano's history, may influence how ADA behaves in August. The upgrade's first public testnet launched June 23 and cleared key governance thresholds by mid-July, with the Constitutional Committee's final sign-off targeted for mid-to-late July. 

No mainnet date has been locked. 

The upgrade is complicated by recent turbulence: ADA is down roughly 53% year-to-date, the 2026 Cardano Summit was cancelled, and Hoskinson himself acknowledged in a July 27 livestream that the project's strategy needs to change, following visible community friction over governance disputes. 

Whale wallets holding 10 million to 100 million ADA have continued accumulating through the volatility, growing their share of supply even as network transaction counts have cooled.

Levels: ADA sits well below its 20-day EMA ($0.1596), 50-day EMA ($0.1885), 100-day EMA ($0.2231), and 200-day EMA ($0.2969) — a downtrend a positive ETF signal would need to meaningfully overcome. Near-term support holds around $0.14; resistance sits at the 20-day EMA near $0.16.

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