What Sent Bitcoin Flying Above $71,000? 5 Factors Behind the Surge

It gives us great (mostly unbiased) pleasure to write such an article, especially after weeks and months and nearly a year of painful declines or lack of any actual upside movement. After all, the cryptocurrency market is used to explosive movements, but this wasn’t the case for a long time. At least not in the ‘right’ direction.

Let’s quickly recap what happened in the past 24 hours: bitcoin traded at $64,400, then exploded to $70,000, then it was briefly pushed back to $68,000, then went on the offensive again, and then rocketed past $71,000 minutes ago for the first time since very early June.

As Glassnode put it, this was its most impressive daily close since February, but that one followed a major retracement. What makes the current pump so spectacular is that it had “no crash to bounce off.”

The last daily bitcoin:native close this large was in February, and that was just the rebound from the -14% day before it.

This one had no crash to bounce off. Against its own 30d volatility it was a 5.8 sigma move – the largest to the upside since October 2023. pic.twitter.com/SqiitTuTYc

— glassnode (@glassnode) August 20, 2026

The Main Catalyst

Perhaps the most important factor behind this mind-blowing surge was the US Treasury Department’s announcement that it will at least double the maximum size of liquidity-support buybacks for longer-dated government debt. It will raise them from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation, and the changes will commence on September 9 and will continue until November 4.

This announcement came after the 30-year Treasury yield hit 5.34% on Tuesday, the highest level in nearly 20 years, as inflation concerns, heavy government borrowing, and concerns about the overall US fiscal outlook skyrocketed. The same Treasury yield dropped immediately to 5.20%, while stocks, gold, and crypto moved in the opposite direction. The dollar weakened as lower bond yields can make non-yielding and riskier assets relatively more attractive.

More US-Related Reasons

Since we are on the US topic, let’s explore two more possible factors that could be regarded as promising for risk-on assets. The first came from the POTUS, who paused the tariffs against Canada and later announced a deal to cut some of them from 25% to 15%. Tariff news has impacted BTC for over a year and a half, and trade deals tend to benefit the asset’s moves.

The other one, expectedly, also came from Trump. This time, though, it concerned Iran. Instead of warning of new ballistic attacks, the POTUS took a different approach, targeting the country’s economy.

After admitting that the Iranian government had failed to make a deal with the US, he outlined the new strategy, which will focus on bringing the country down through economic activity.

“I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale. Their navy is gone, their air force is destroyed, their military factories are now rubble, their currency is worthless, and their country is hanging by a thread.”

Obviously, this is not the perfect outcome, especially for Iran, but at least there are no new damaging physical attacks or another threat of a nuclear massacre. Risk assets like that.

ETFs and OI

Now let’s focus more on BTC itself. The first reason here is the ETF inflows. Data from SoSoValue shows that the daily net inflows stood at just over $517 million for yesterday. This was the highest number since early May, when the flows were $630 million and $532 million for two consecutive trading sessions. Recall that bitcoin went on an impressive run back then, peaking at $83,000 within a week or so.

To put things into perspective, the netflows yesterday alone were a lot higher than the entire month of July, when the funds attracted $172.43 million.

Lastly, let’s examine the open interest, which had built up to its highest position since 2023. When leverage increases so much, every smaller move becomes much larger, which is evident from the cascade of liquidations of traders betting on the wrong side.

And the OI just a few days before yesterday’s explosion was even higher than before the October 2025 massacre, when the liquidations topped $19 billion. In other words, something was brewing for weeks, as BTC doesn’t like standing in one spot for too long.