Why did Bitcoin soar to $74,000 in 48 hours? The Treasury move behind BTC's massive rally

BTC spent six weeks stuck in a narrow range. Then, over the course of this week, it broke above $68,000, cleared $70,000 for the first time since June and kept climbing to trade above $74,000 by Friday — its highest level in more than two months.

The Treasury decision that started it all

Long-term US Treasury yields climbed to their highest levels in nearly 20 years, as a global bond rout pushed 30-year borrowing costs sharply higher. 

On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's department announced it would more than double the size of its buybacks of older long-term bonds, from a maximum of $2 billion per operation to at least $4 billion, focused on 10-to-20-year and 20-to-30-year Treasuries.

The Kobeissi Letter had flagged this kind of intervention as likely since July, when long-term borrowing costs first reached levels unseen since before the 2008 financial crisis. 

Markets read Wednesday's announcement as a form of quiet quantitative easing rather than a formal rate move and reacted immediately: the 30-year yield fell toward 5.20%, the 10-year yield dropped alongside it and the dollar weakened. Lower yields and a softer dollar tend to make non-yielding, scarce assets more attractive by comparison; stocks, gold and crypto climbed together.

Earlier in the week, gold had been rallying on its own while BTC stayed flat around $64,000. 

The short squeeze that amplified the rally

BTC's rally accelerated once it broke through key levels, triggering more than $2.74 billion in liquidations across the derivatives market over 24 hours. The bulk of it came from short positions. 

BTC's one-year realized volatility and trading volume hit one of its lowest points since September 2023. According to Grayscale’s analysis, BTC lulls tend to precede turning points, although the macro and institutional environments have drastically changed since that last turning point in 2023. 

Six weeks of sideways trading had left the market unusually one-sided, with traders leaning short into a range they expected to hold. When it didn't, the unwinding came sharp.

What's next for Bitcoin

BTC's rally has now cleared a level chart watchers consider genuinely significant: the 200-day EMA, sitting near $71,500 to $71,700, which had capped every rally attempt since June. A sustained close above it is generally read as an important sign that the downtrend may have reversed.

Bitcoin is now trading above all five of its major moving averages for the first time since spring and momentum indicators have moved into bullish territory. Closer to hand, the $76,000 area — cited in CoinDesk's technical analysis as the measured target from BTC's prior reversal pattern — is the next resistance zone to watch.

However, 14-day RSI was pushed into overbought territory, which raises the likelihood of a near-term pullback or consolidation even within an intact uptrend.

Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick has maintained a $100,000 year-end target for BTC since June, arguing the worst of the decline was likely already behind the market.

Events influencing Bitcoin price this week

1. FOMC minutes

The Fed released minutes from its July 28 to 29 meeting on Wednesday and they showed the hawkish mood ran deeper than the three officials who formally dissented in favor of a hike; several participants said tightening would likely be necessary if inflation didn't come down and some questioned whether financial conditions were even restrictive enough yet. 

But it's also a three-week-old snapshot: since that meeting, a weak jobs report and two straight cooling inflation prints have decreased the market's projection of a September hike. Markets have largely treated the minutes as outdated rather than fresh information.

2. CFTC's Innovation Advisory Committee

The CFTC held the first-ever meeting of its Innovation Advisory Committee on Thursday, a three-hour session in Washington dedicated to crypto regulation, AI and prediction markets. The meeting followed a White House gathering the day before, where US president Donald Trump hosted crypto and prediction-market executives alongside senior regulators.

CFTC Chairman Michael Selig opened Thursday's session, with discussions covering tokenization, blockchain adoption, crypto custody rules and the future generation of financial markets.

The committee is advisory only and passed no formal resolutions. But with the CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate until at least September, Thursday's meeting offered one of the clearer near-term looks at how regulators intend to use their existing authority while Congress remains stuck.

Bitcoin price: Technical levels

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