08/20 update below. This post was originally published on August 20
Bitcoin has suddenly surged by more than 10% over the last 24 hours, following quiet signs an even bigger move could be around the corner.
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The bitcoin price has topped $70,000 per bitcoin after spending months at around $60,000, with BlackRock sending the market a surprise signal earlier this month. Ethereum, up 20%, and other major cryptocurrencies including Ripple’s XRP, up 15%, and Hyperliquid’s hype, up 25%, also rocketed higher.
Now, as the Federal Reserve grapples with its bitcoin nightmare coming true, U.S. federal-government debt has passed $40 trillion for the first time—just as the Treasury said it will buy back more long-term government bonds in a desperate attempt to contain soaring borrowing costs.
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U.S. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent announced the Treasury would buy back more long-term government bonds just as U.S. federal-government debt passed $40 trillion for the first time.
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The U.S. Treasury surprised the market by announcing it would “at least double” purchases of long-term government debt as it scrambles to contain a sell-off that has sent borrowing costs soaring.
08/08 update: Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has said the U.S. government may buy back even more Treasury bonds less than 24 hours after surprising the market with a $4 billion repurchase program.
“We’re going to increase the size of the buyback,” Bessent told CNBC. “I would note that it could be more than the $4 billion per issue.”
Bessent’s comments briefly eased yields, which had already entirely reversed their decline, pushing back up U.S. government borrowing costs.
“This comes just hours after the U.S. 30-year Treasury yield erased all of its decline following Wednesday’s announcement,” analysts with the The Kobeissi Letter posted to X. “As predicted … buybacks and broader intervention are likely to be much larger than markets expect. This is a band-aid on a gushing wound.”
Bessent added that there was “nothing magic about the $40 trillion figure,” referring to the spiraling U.S. debt pile that recently crossed that level, predicting that the U.S. would grow its way out of the debt despite GDP growing at just 1.5% in the second quarter, missing expectations of around 2%.
Meanwhile, the bitcoin and crypto community continued to cheer the Treasury’s market intervention.
“Bitcoin is about to do it again. Strap in y’all,” one anonymous trading advice account posted.
“The U.S. Department of the Treasury is increasing, by at least double, the size of liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securities (the 10-year to 20-year sector and the 20-year to 30-year sector). The current maximum size of $2 billion per operation will be at least $4 billion per operation,” a Treasury spokesperson wrote in a press release.
This is “exactly the type of thing bitcoin loves,” Geoffrey Kendrick, Standard Chartered Bank’s head of crypto, wrote in an emailed note.
“Bitcoin, a way to store wealth without a central authority, was built to allow investors a way to avoid this type of intervention … Investors should now be positioning for a move to $100,000 by year-end 2026.”
The news, coming just as U.S. president Donald Trump welcomed bitcoin and crypto company executives to the White House and called for Congress to pass the stalled crypto market structure bill known as the Clarity Act, was cheered as a turning point for the bitcoin price, which has missed out on this year’s artificial intelligence-led stock market rally.
“The U.S. is doubling it’s purchases of it’s own debt,” crypto trader Ran Neuner
posted to X. “This effectively means that they issuing debt and then printing money to buy it back. In other words, the money printer is back on.”
The U.S. federal budget deficit for July hit $432 billion, according to Treasury data reported by Reuters earlier this month, the largest monthly deficit since March 2021 that’s catapulted the 2026 fiscal-year-to-date budget gap to $1.8 trillion.
The soaring deficit has sent U.S. national debt to over $40 trillion, up more more than double over the last decade, pushed sharply higher by years of spiraling spending under both Trump’s and former president Joe Biden’s administrations, along with higher debt interest payments.
Government money printing, designed to support economic growth, has been largely credited with bitcoin’s major rallies over the last 15 years, with bitcoin’s mysterious creator Satoshi Nakamoto referencing government bailouts directly when they created bitcoin in 2008.
“Bitcoin has been coiled for 81 days in the same range,” Neuner added. “These coils land up in big moves. The bigger the coil, and this one was big, the bigger the move. Bitcoin responds to liquidity and the U.S. just caved. This could be a long and sustained move.”
The reason for bitcoin’s huge rally, coming after such a long spell of relatively price stability, has been misinterpreted, according to some market watchers.
“Bitcoin is surging because the Treasury has signaled it will do whatever it takes to keep long end yields from flying up, up and away,” James Lavish, co-managing partner of Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, posted to X, dismissing a Bloomberg report that credited the Trump meeting with crypto executives at the White House for the bitcoin price surge.
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The bitcoin price has suddenly shot higher, igniting hopes among the bitcoin and crypto faithful that the bull run is back.
Forbes Digital Assets
Regardless of the reason behind bitcoin’s pump, the bitcoin and crypto faithful are cheering the move as a sign of things to come.
“Buckle up,” Cameron Winklevoss, who in 2014 founded the Gemini New York-based crypto exchange with his twin brother Tyler 10 years after suing Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook’s founding, posted to X.
The Winklevoss twins, who have cultivated a close relationship with the Trump White House and the Republican Party, appeared alongside Trump at a press briefing, where Trump said the U.S. is open to buying a significant amount of bitcoin.
“Certainly it’s been talked about,” Trump said when asked by a reporter if his administration could buy “sizeable amounts” of bitcoin for the U.S. bitcoin strategic reserve he created with an executive order last year and has been stocked with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies seized by law enforcement.
“[The bitcoin reserve has] taken a lot of pressure off the dollar. It’s been very, very good for the dollar, and I think if you came in with recommendations, I would certainly listen,” Trump said, referring to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Paul Atkins and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chair Mike Selig.
Earlier this week, the SEC surprised the market by dropping its long-awaited first major crypto rule, generally known as “Reg Crypto,” designed to create a safe harbor for crypto companies that would have otherwise had to comply with securities laws that they have claimed stifled the technology’s growth.
At the press conference, Trump signaled Hyperliquid, the decentralized exchange that’s found massive popularity with its 24/7 oil “perpetual futures” through the U.S.-Iran war, could be given U.S. regulatory approval.
“I understand that [Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair] Mike [Selig] is also working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion,” Trump said at the press conference.
Speaking to CNBC, David Schamis, the chief executive of hype treasure company Hyperliquid Strategies and founding partner at Atlas Merchant Capital, said his company has “been trying for awhile to figure out how to get into the U.S. and the CFTC has been quite responsive, but when Trump says it at a press conference, it means it’s a priority.”
Hyperliquid Strategies rocketed by 30% during Wednesday’s trading session, with other crypto treasury companies including major bitcoin buyer Strategy also seeing outsized performance compared to their underlying assets.