Crypto Brief: Bitcoin Jumps $10,000 in a Week as Shorts Lose $3 Billion

Latest reporting indicates that bitcoin has surged roughly $10,000 over the past week, breaking above $77,000 for the first time since May after the U.S.

The rally briefly touched $79,500 yesterday, wiping out billions in short bets along the way.

Bitcoin had spent six weeks pinned between $60,000 and $65,000 before this week’s breakout.

The move began after the US Department of the Treasury said it would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations for longer-dated coupon securities, raising the maximum from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation.

Treasury buybacks let the government repurchase older, less liquid bonds before maturity, effectively easing borrowing costs and injecting cash into the market.

9 and covers 10-to-30-year Treasury bonds through the current refunding quarter, which ends Nov.

The announcement pulled the 10-year Treasury yield down roughly six basis points to about 4.647%, while the 30-year yield slid nine basis points to 5.196%, a retreat from the 5.33% level it hit earlier this month, its highest since 2007.

Markets read the buyback expansion as a liquidity signal, and traders rotated into bitcoin as a hedge against renewed monetary easing.