Bitcoin (BTC) is rallying again, and VanEck’s Matthew Sigel says it is finally acting like the hedge it was built to be.
Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, ties the move to fears over US fiscal policy rather than pending crypto legislation.
All Eyes on the US Treasury
The US Treasury doubled its long-dated bond buyback ceiling, from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation. The move compressed yields and fed a broader risk-on rally tied to the Treasury’s bond buyback expansion.
Roughly $3 billion in forced short liquidations amplified the move. bitcoin climbed to $72,757, part of what one report called Bitcoin’s short squeeze cascade.
Sigel downplays the CLARITY Act, the crypto market structure bill working through Congress, as the driver. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has voiced optimism the bill clears 60 Senate votes, though prediction markets price a slim chance it becomes law this year, a gap Sigel says explains why the rally isn’t about CLARITY Act’s Senate odds.
“Bitcoin is one of the best hedges you can find on that dynamic.”
— Matthew Sigel, Head of Digital Asset Research, VanEck, via CNBC
That hedge framing carries a mixed record
Bitcoin’s correlation with US equities spiked, not fell, during the 2020 COVID crash and the 2022 rate-hiking cycle. Academic research shows that pattern, not decoupling, is what typically happens under market stress.
That tension traces back to Bitcoin’s origin. Satoshi Nakamoto’s 2008 whitepaper proposed Bitcoin as a fixed-supply alternative to a financial system reliant on central bank money printing.
Sigel’s dollar-debasement argument revives that same case, just aimed at Treasury debt management instead of the printing press directly.
Whether Bitcoin keeps behaving like that hedge, or snaps back into a risk-on trade if equities wobble, will show which version of the story markets are actually pricing.