Bitcoin surges above $80,000 amid record ETF inflows and a Treasury-fueled macro shift

Bitcoin crossed $80,000 in late August for the first time since mid-May, capping a week that reminded markets just how quickly sentiment can reverse in crypto. The move was not a slow grind higher. It was a sprint, with Bitcoin posting gains of 20-25% in a single week before touching an intraday peak of $81,272. A perfect storm of macro and money flows The U.S. Treasury announced plans to roughly double its government bond buyback operations, scaling purchases to approximately $4 billion per session starting in early September. Bond buybacks push yields lower and tend to weaken the dollar, which historically sends investors toward assets that don’t carry counterparty risk. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs absorbed $1.92 billion in net inflows during the week ending August 21-22, with BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, known as IBIT, contributing a significant share of that total. On August 20 alone, daily inflows hit $606 million. The short squeeze that nobody’s calling a short squeeze Part of what powered Bitcoin through $80,000 was a cascading liquidation of bearish positions. Traders who had bet against Bitcoin, or hedged aggressively after the June lows near $58,000, found themselves on ...