![US President Donald Trump speaks at a Bitcoin event in July 2024. [Reuters]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/08/21/rcv.YNA.20260814.PRU20260814254001009_P1.jpg)
Bitcoin, the world's largest virtual asset by market capitalization, surged past $70,000, driven by the US Treasury's announcement of an expanded government bond buyback program and President Donald Trump's push to pass a sweeping crypto deregulation bill.
The price spike triggered a cascade of forced liquidations of short positions — a so-called short squeeze — that further accelerated the rally.
According to Coinbase, the US virtual asset exchange, bitcoin was trading at $72,812 as of 1 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, up about 6.2 percent from 24 hours earlier.
That marked a gain of more than 15 percent from a week prior, and the price broke cleanly through the upper resistance of the $62,000–$66,000 range that had contained it for the past six weeks.
However, the price remains about 42 percent below the all-time high of $126,210.50 set last October.
Analysts attributed the surge to a confluence of favorable macroeconomic conditions and policy developments.
On Thursday, the US Treasury announced it would at least double the scale of its government bond buyback program to stabilize financial markets. Long-term bond yields fell and the dollar weakened in response, drawing investment into risk assets including bitcoin.
Adding to the momentum, Trump summoned Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and other crypto industry figures to the White House on Thursday and pressed for congressional passage of the CLARITY Act, a bill that would ease regulations on virtual assets.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed a floor vote on the bill for Sept. 15, raising the prospect of its actual passage.
Armstrong told Fox Business that he expected the bill to clear the 60-vote threshold needed for passage. "This is a bipartisan piece of legislation, so I think it will get more than 60 votes," he said, adding, "Personally, I think we are finally at the start of a new crypto bull market."
Reuters, Bloomberg and CNBC reported that a record wave of short liquidations was what turned bitcoin's rise into a full-blown surge.
Crypto data analytics firm Coinglass said roughly $1 billion worth of short positions were forcibly liquidated within a single hour as bitcoin's price spiked.
Total forced liquidations of bearish bets over the 24-hour period exceeded $3 billion.
Thomas Lee, co-founder of market research firm Fundstrat, called the episode "the second-largest short liquidation event in history."
The short squeeze — in which traders betting on a price decline are forced to buy back bitcoin at higher prices to limit their losses — created a self-reinforcing cycle that drove the price even higher.
Adam McCarthy, head of research at trading firm Roteck, said the move was driven not by fresh capital entering the futures market but by the forced unwinding of heavily one-sided short positions. "The futures market has exhausted its short base, so the next leg higher will require real spot buying, not another short squeeze," he said.
Analysts broadly expect the rally to continue for some time.
Geoff Kendrick, head of virtual asset research at Standard Chartered, said investors should prepare for bitcoin to push toward $100,000 by year-end. Armstrong also predicted that bitcoin would reach $300,000 to $400,000 by 2030.
Meanwhile, ether, the second-largest virtual asset by market cap, was trading at $2,340 as of 1 p.m. Thursday, up about 12 percent from 24 hours earlier and roughly 25 percent from a week prior.
mokiya@heraldcorp.com
