Bitcoin continued to rally in Asia on Friday, putting it on track for its best weekly gain in more than two years.
The original cryptocurrency climbed as much as 4.2 per cent to $75,740 and was sitting around $74,500 at noon in Singapore. It has advanced almost 20 per cent this week, a gain that, if sustained, would be its biggest weekly increase since March 2024.
Market exuberance returned to cryptocurrencies when US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Wednesday the department would at least double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks, triggering an upswing that forced traders to liquidate billions in short positions. The same day, President Donald Trump met with crypto industry leaders, further adding to optimism.
“The real driver was the US Treasury doubling long-dated bond buybacks, which pulled long yields lower and lifted risk appetite broadly,” said Rachael Lucas, an analyst at BTC Markets. “Nothing has rewritten Bitcoin’s long-term case, but nothing’s rewritten its volatility either.”
A short squeeze continues to be a major driver of rising Bitcoin prices, according to Adam Morgan McCarthy, lead researcher at LO:TECH, a London-based digital-asset liquidity and market data firm. Over $2 billion in bearish Bitcoin bets in the perpetual futures market have been liquidated since Aug. 19, according to Coinglass data.
