Bitcoin's 26% August gain may be ending, Warsh warns

Bitcoin gained about 26% in August, but Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh said the run may be ending. Warsh made the remarks on Monday at a Group of 20 meeting in Asheville, North Carolina. Warsh has led the Federal Reserve for 100 days. Warsh argued that cheap money is over because growth is picking up and cash is moving into new projects. Warsh said money is now pouring into artificial intelligence. Warsh said he cannot call current conditions tight. Inflation is still 3.7% a year. Warsh made a similar argument at Jackson Hole on Friday. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent doubled Treasury bond buybacks to at least $4 billion each on August 19. Critics said the buybacks aimed to lower borrowing costs. Bessent denied that claim. Bessent said he could not change the equilibrium price. Bessent said his job was to slow things down and prevent disorderly market conditions. The 30-year Treasury yield reached about 5.26% on Monday. That marked a 19-year high. The 10-year Treasury yield surged to 4.76%. Stanley Druckenmiller said Bessent was repeating a mistake. Druckenmiller led the 1992 bet that broke the Bank of England. Bessent worked at Soros Fund Management at that time. Bessent said he had spoken with Druckenmiller after the op-ed appeared. Bessent suggested that the timing had cost his former mentor money in the market. Investors bought hard assets in August because they expected the dollar to keep losing value. Gold and Bitcoin both retreated after Warsh's Jackson Hole speech.