Bitcoin breaks out of six-week range, tops $71,000 as $3 billion in shorts get wiped out
Bitcoin $BTC$71,936.32 extended Wednesdays advance, climbing above $71,000 for the first time since June. The largest cryptocurrency has added 3.5% since midnight UTC and 11% over 24 hours, having broken decisively out of the range that had held it since July 8. The price move was mechanical rather than narrative-driven. $BTC spent six weeks between roughly $62,000 and $66,900 with volatility grinding down to multi-year lows, a setup that encouraged traders to fade every approach to the range high. That left a thick band of short liquidation levels between $65,000 and $67,000. The U.S. Treasurys announcement that it would at least double long-dated buyback operations to $4 billion pulled the 30-year yield back from 5.337%, its highest since 2007, and the resulting bid in risk assets was enough to clear the ceiling. Once that fell, $3 billion of shorts were force-bought back into thin resting supply and the spiral carried bitcoin up more than 8% inside an hour. President Donald Trumps comments landed hours later into a market that had already made the bulk of its move. His call for Congress to pass the Clarity Act, a suggestion that the U.S. may buy sizable amounts of bitcoin and the reveal that regulators are working