Bitcoin broke out of a six-week trading range to top $71,000, triggering the largest short liquidation event since at least 2021 as $3 billion in bearish bets were forced to cover. The rally picked up a second leg after President Trump urged Congress to pass the CLARITY Act and floated the idea of U.S. bitcoin purchases.
Bitcoin climbed above $71,000 for the first time since June, adding 3.5% since midnight UTC and 11% over 24 hours as it broke out of the range that had held it since July 8.
A short squeeze clears a six-week range
The breakout ended six weeks of consolidation between roughly $62,000 and $66,900, a stretch during which volatility ground down to multiyear lows and traders leaned on fading every approach to the range high. That positioning left a dense band of short liquidation levels between $65,000 and $67,000.
The U.S. Treasury said it would at least double its long-dated bond buybacks to $4 billion, pulling the 30-year yield back from 5.337%, its highest level since 2007. The resulting bid in risk assets cleared the range ceiling. Short liquidations totaled $3 billion over 24 hours against $263.5 million on the long side — the largest such event since at least 2021. BTC accounted for $1.67 billion of that total and ETH for $1.14 billion, with more than $1 billion clearing in a single hour.
Cointelegraph put the two-day tally, spanning Aug. 19-20, at $3.1 billion, of which BTC made up $1.65 billion — figures pulled from CoinGlass rather than CoinDesk's 24-hour window. Per CoinGlass, Thursday alone was the largest single-day short wipeout ever recorded.
Trump pushes the CLARITY Act, floats bitcoin purchases
Hours after the squeeze, Trump called on Congress to pass the CLARITY Act at a White House gathering. He also suggested the U.S. may buy sizable amounts of bitcoin. Regulators, he said, are exploring a compliant pathway for Hyperliquid.
CoinGape reported the event was attended by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi, ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher, SEC Chair Paul Atkins, CFTC Chair Mike Selig, and White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt.
Ether traded at $2,270 after rocketing 19% in 24 hours, just below Wednesday's three-month high. Bitcoin's daily trading volume rose 250% to $59 billion. Coinbase's Fear and Greed index jumped to 59, a greed reading, from 41, a fear reading.
Holders take profit as leverage rebuilds
On-chain data from CryptoQuant showed short-term holders sent 43,300 BTC in profit to exchanges, their largest profit-taking move of 2026. The short-term holder SOPR metric reached 1.01, its highest since April.
Meanwhile, open interest rose 9.11% to $131.25 billion, with BTC open interest up 7.18% to $23.4 billion. But funding rates stayed restrained at 0.0101% for BTC, suggesting the leverage build-up that typically follows a squeeze this size has not yet arrived.
Sources: CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, CoinGape
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