Bitcoin traded above $68,000 and ether gained 9% on Wednesday, forcing $1.91 billion of leveraged positions to close, according to Coinglass. Shorts made up $1.74 billion of that total, roughly eight times the volume of liquidations recorded over the previous 24 hours.
The trigger came from the bond market. The U.S. Treasury said Wednesday morning it will at least double the size of its buybacks of long-dated debt, reversing a selloff that had pushed the 30-year yield to its highest daily close since June 2007. Bitcoin had traded between roughly $59,000 and $67,000 for seven weeks, and positioning was heavily short into the break.
Bitcoin last changed hands at $68,605, up 5.8% over 24 hours, after moving between $64,124 and $68,982, CoinGecko data shows, while Ether was at $2,086, up 9%. XRP added 6.9% to $1.07; Solana rose 6.5% to $81.67; BNB gained 2.3% to $619.
Total crypto market value stood at $2.41 trillion, up 5.1%, on $75.7 billion of 24-hour volume, with bitcoin dominance at 57.1%. DeFi total value locked rose to $78.1 billion from $74.7 billion on Monday, according to DefiLlama.
Bitcoin remains 45% below its October 2025 record of $126,080. Ether is 58% below the $4,946 it reached in August 2025.
