Bitcoin jumps 8.7% to $69,749 as Treasury buyback plan squeezes shorts

Bitcoin jumped 8.7% to $69,749 on Wednesday, its steepest one-day move since March 4 and its highest price since June 1, after the U.S. Treasury said it would at least double its long-end bond buybacks starting Sept. 9.

"The buyback expansion signals Treasury is willing to actively manage bond market stress rather than simply monitor it," Krishna Guha, head of global policy and central bank strategy at Evercore ISI, wrote in a client note, "which can help crowd in potential buyers and force some near-term short-covering."

The Treasury will raise per-operation buybacks from $2 billion to at least $4 billion through Nov. 4, pushing long-end yields lower and weakening the dollar. The 10-year yield fell about 6 basis points to 4.66%, the dollar index lost 0.84% to 98.80, and gold rose 4.05%. CoinGlass data showed $1.14 billion in short liquidations across crypto within a single hour, with Bitcoin alone accounting for $677.64 million.

The next line in the sand sits at $70,284, the lower edge of a resistance band on Bitcoin's chart. A daily close above that level opens room toward $73,245, while losing $68,000 drags Bitcoin back inside the range that has held since June.

Short squeeze flips prediction markets

The rally caught near-term predictors flat-footed. On Myriad, a market wagering on a pump to $84,000 against a dump to $55,000 had priced roughly 70 percent odds of the dump days earlier; by Wednesday afternoon those odds had collapsed to a near coin flip, with the dump side at 51.9 percent and the pump side at 48.1 percent.

Longer-dated markets barely moved. Polymarket's 2026 Bitcoin price market was pricing a 56 percent chance BTC touches $55,000 before year-end and 51 percent odds of reaching $75,000, levels that held steady from last week. Kalshi traders had given Bitcoin only a 54 percent shot at clearing $67,500 in August and 31 percent odds of hitting $70,000 — both thresholds Bitcoin blew through Wednesday.

The Treasury announcement landed the same day as a White House meeting between crypto executives and regulators, plus a fresh SEC proposal easing registration rules for some digital-asset offerings. Crypto-linked stocks followed the squeeze higher, with Strategy up nearly 12 percent, Coinbase up 9 percent, and Circle and BitMine each gaining roughly 9 to 10 percent.

Yields, not headlines, anchor the price

Glassnode data showed Bitcoin trading near cyclical lows around $60,000 to $65,000 before the move, with the 10-year yield near 4.7 percent acting as the key macro constraint. The Short-Term Holder Cost Basis sits at $68,500, below the True Market Mean of $75,800, a setup seen during capitulation events.

Institutional money was already building before the Treasury news. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $487 million in net inflows across Aug. 17-18, with BlackRock's IBIT capturing $143.6 million on Aug. 18 alone, according to fund data.

The buyback program runs only through Nov. 4, and Treasury will reassess after that window. If larger buybacks keep long-end yields down and the dollar weak, Wednesday's jump could mark the first response to easing global financial conditions; if yields climb again, the move reads as a short squeeze rather than the start of a liquidity-driven recovery.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.