Don't want to trade it yourself?
Our desk runs DEX portfolios on profit share.
Bitcoin (BTC) jumped 5.8% to levels above $69,500 on Wednesday, wiping out $1.23 billion in bets against it in one hour. Is the crypto bull market back?
The rally ran market-wide, with Ethereum (ETH) up 9% to $2,088, Solana (SOL) up 6.5%, and XRP (XRP) up 6.9%. One decision in Washington set it off.
A $4 Billion Signal From the US Treasury
The US Treasury said it will double its buybacks of long-term government bonds to at least $4 billion per operation. In plain terms, the government stepped in as a buyer of its own debt.
The timing couldn’t be better for risk assets. The 30-year yield, the interest rate the US pays on its longest debt, had just hit 5.337%. That was its highest level since 2007. The Treasury buyback announcement knocked it back to 5.192%.
Markets read the move as proof that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is watching borrowing costs. When yields fall, bonds pay less, and money hunts for returns elsewhere. Bitcoin sits near the front of that line.
$1.2 trillion has been added to precious metals and crypto in the last 3 hours.
Gold up +3.08%, adding $934 billion.
Silver up +3.86%, adding $136 billion.
Bitcoin up +8.14%, adding $103 billion.
Ethereum up +9.66%, adding $22 billion.This comes as the Treasury announced it… pic.twitter.com/3P02115yc6
— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) August 19, 2026
Sentiment followed. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index moved to 46 on Wednesday, steadily approaching the neutral zone after sitting lower last week.
How $1.23 Billion in Short Bets Vanished in One Hour
Traders who bet on falling prices, known as shorts, paid dearly. Roughly $1.23 billion of those bets were closed out at a loss within an hour.
Across 24 hours, the billion-dollar short liquidations reached $1.57 billion and hit more than 114,000 traders. Three large wallets on Hyperliquid lost a combined $194 million alone.
Here is why that fuels a rally. When a short bet fails, the exchange buys the asset back at market price. Every forced buy pushes the price higher, which wipes out more shorts. The squeeze feeds itself.
Analyst Michaël van de Poppe argued that the Treasury decision changes the market’s trajectory.
“This is a great announcement and is a great trigger for the markets. #Bitcoin in a bull market, the likelihood of this has increased,” he shared in a post.
Bitcoin Tags a Fair Value Gap Left by the May Crash
The daily chart carries a warning in itself. Wednesday’s candle ran straight into a fair value gap (FVG), a zone the price crashed through in early June too fast for normal two-way trading. Think of it as a pothole the market skipped on the way down.
Price tends to revisit these zones to fill the imbalance before picking a direction. This gap sits between roughly $67,516 and $70,686. Bitcoin tagged it on Wednesday, reaching an intraday high of $69,500 as of this writing, before easing to $67,996 at press time.
Source: finance.yahoo.com