Bouncy bounce
What's being bought and sold*
TOP TRENDING ASSETS
*Trading activity in the past 24 hours on the Uphold platform, as of 8 a.m. 21st August 2026.
The combined total of buy and sell percentages can exceed 100% due to customers who engage in both buying and selling the same asset within the 24-hour time frame.
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What’s up
Crypto Steps On The Gas Pedal
Bitcoin approached $73,000 late Thursday afternoon while analysts tried to figure out just how much extra liquidity ultimately could be unleashed via the Treasury’s debt buyback initiative. And on Friday morning, BTC shot even higher. As of 5:45 a.m. (EST), it had reached $78,000.
The new policy, doubling maximum government bond repurchase totals to at least $4B, a form of monetary easing, was announced Wednesday by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The enlarged buyback operations will begin next month and extend through early November. Simply by opening up the heavy-duty tool chest and removing a power drill, Bessent has set the stage for potentially larger repurchase operations totaling tens of billions of dollars per month.
Yesterday, only one day after unwrapping his handy yield compression gizmo, Bessent said the government could increase their size beyond the $4B billion previously announced. “We want to show that yields do not reflect underlying fundamentals,” Bessent told CNBC.
Mark Connors, CIO at Risk Dimensions, told CoinDesk that the government routinely making larger buybacks removes one of the most severe pressure points that has stifled crypto markets.
This easy-like-Sunday-morning notion sure seems spot-on accurate as several big-cap altcoins are fully seizing the moment.
XRP crossed $1.25 less than a week after slipping below $1. The coin closely associated with Ripple had soared 24% in 24 hours at one stage yesterday afternoon.
Other double-digit (percentage-wise) gains were turned in by the likes of Hyperliquid, Pump.fun and Pepe.
What's down
Bitcoin Pessimism Supply Dwindles
Sentiment across the market has shifted. And while traders on prediction markets aren’t entirely sure the rally has legs, they are more open to the concept than they had been.
On Myriad, merely days ago, the proposition “pump to $84K or dump to $55K?” had garnered roughly two-thirds buy-in on the latter move being more likely. Now this closely followed prediction market is split 50-50. (Decrypt).
What's next
As Leaves Begin To Fall, A Slew Of Bitcoin Catalysts Could Arise
As of early Friday, Bitcoin seemed bound for $80K but even just staying above $72K holds meaningful consequences in the days ahead. That's because of the sheer number of leveraged BTC shorts positioned at or around that level. If BTC remains above $72K, explained Jim Ferraioli, director of crypto research at Charles Schwab, traders betting on lower prices could choose to close out their positions lest they face automatically triggered liquidations.
Closing a short, as CoinDesk explained, requires buying BTC, which can exert upward pressure on the price and, in a cruel cascade, trigger further liquidations. For the moment, BTC seems inclined to hover between $72K and $73K as longs and shorts duke it out.
While a short-squeeze scenario is something to consider over the next couple of weeks, the Treasury’s long-bond buyback plan could be a positive dynamic that plays out over a longer period of time, countering the headwinds of monetary tightness. And on top of that, there’s a sector-specific catalyst barreling toward a reckoning.
If the Clarity Act progresses next month, pointed out Risk Dimensions’ Mark Connors, BTC’s $72K mark will hold. If the legislation does not progress, that $72K mark will almost surely fall, he added.
But, wait, there is still more to chew on — yet another potentially bullish development worthy of contemplation.
Connors believes another potential step Treasury could take would be to tweak banks’ supplementary leverage ratios, or SLRs, which determine how much government debt banks can hold relative to their capital. An easing of those constraints would allow banks to absorb even more government bonds, elevating demand, putting more downward pressure on rates and freeing up risk capital.
“When that happens,” Connors said of the SLR changes he envisions, “that’s when Bitcoin starts to seek that first $180,000 price threshold.”
Connors said $180K is potentially in reach within a cycle that will play out over the next four years. It is his lowball target estimate. Connors said the high side of his BTC price target range — possibly to occur some time this cycle — is $360K.
