After Bitcoin’s breakout surge yesterday, today indeed brought a second wave of explosive rally.
BTC surged from about $65,000 all the way to above $72,000. During the session, the intraday high touched the $72,200–$72,400 range, setting a new high since June. The 24-hour gain is roughly 10%–11%.
ETH is even stronger—up 17%–20% in a single day, reclaiming the $2,000 level.
On August 19, Trump held a crypto summit in the White House. The CEOs of Coinbase, Ripple, Robinhood, and Kraken all attended, and SEC Chair Atkins and CFTC Chair Selig also appeared on stage together.
Trump immediately called on Congress to quickly pass the Clarity Act (crypto market structure bill). He also hinted that the CFTC is studying ways to make Hyperliquid compliant with U.S. regulations—just that one sentence sent HYPE up over 20%.
BTC ETFs saw a net inflow of $517 million in a single day, the largest single-day inflow since early May. ETH ETFs had inflows of $189 million, setting a new high since last October.
On the bears’ side, they’ve really been pierced: in 24 hours, more than $3 billion in short positions were liquidated. At one point, within an hour, over $1 billion was wiped out—one of the largest squeeze events in recent years.
The U.S. Treasury increased the scale of long-term Treasury buybacks from at least $2 billion per operation to $4 billion. This move directly pushed the yield on the 30-year Treasury note—already having climbed to about 5.34% (a new high since 2019)—back toward the 5.2% area.
In the short term, three catalysts hit at the same time, and sentiment is indeed on point. But if you break down the structure:
The foundation is real money (Treasury Department buybacks)
As long as the pressure on long-end Treasury yields doesn’t ease, this logic still holds—this is the most scrutinizable part of the current rally.
The policy narrative (Clarity Act, Hyperliquid compliance) is the premium.
The crypto summit built expectations, but the legislative machine didn’t speed up. There’s a gap between expectations and reality. If the September 15 vote falls short of expectations, this premium can be pulled away at any time.
A leveraged squeeze is an accelerator, not an engine.
On-chain data shows that more than 44,000 bitcoins have already been transferred by short-term holders to exchanges, which is a classic signal of profit-taking.
So how long this rally can last mainly depends on whether the Senate’s September 15 vote can continue to support crypto.
Republican leader John Thune submitted a cloture motion on August 8, ahead of the Senate entering August recess, effectively forcing this clear-cut bill onto the September agenda.
On the afternoon of September 15 at 2:15 p.m. (ET), the Senate will hold a cloture vote (a vote to end debate) on H.R. 3633—i.e., the Clarity Act’s “whether to agree to enter the debate procedure” (motion to proceed). It needs 60 votes to pass.
The Republicans currently have 53 seats. Even if everyone supports, they’re still short 7 votes—you need to pull at least 7 Democratic or independent senators over to get it passed.