Bitcoin climbed above $81,300 at about 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 25, reaching its highest level since May 15 and marking a 102-day high. It was later quoted at $80,694, up 4.65% over the past 24 hours. Measured from the Aug. 17 low of $62,751, the token’s gain over a trading week was close to 30%.
Ether also moved up, trading at $2,511 with a 24-hour increase of 3.06%.
Liquidity narrative moved to the front
The main explanation cited in the market for the rally was U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent’s funding operations. Arthur Hayes wrote on Aug. 25 that Bessent was following the approach of former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen by using the U.S. government bond market to release dollar liquidity.
According to Hayes, Bessent intervened in the yen exchange rate and then announced another $20 billion increase in long-dated Treasury buybacks, with the intention of keeping the 10-year Treasury yield below 5%. Hayes framed that move as another injection of cheap liquidity into the financial system, while describing Bitcoin as a "global liquidity barometer" that had already reacted to the shift.
Hayes also wrote that Bitcoin would keep rising regardless of how fast Bessent moved. In an earlier interview, he said he expected Bitcoin to enter a parabolic advance soon and rise quickly to the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Institutional demand appeared at the same time
Alongside the liquidity story, institutional buying also showed up in the data. On-chain tracking service OnchainLens said BlackRock withdrew 2,802.904 BTC from Coinbase Prime on Aug. 25, valued in the article at about $223.41 million. It also withdrew 6,580 ETH, with the assets sent to wallets tied to IBIT, ETHA and ETHB.
Separately, a Form 8-K filed by Strive with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed that the company bought 1,110 BTC between Aug. 17 and Aug. 21 at an average price of about $73,409. As of Aug. 21, Strive held 21,356 BTC in total, with the filing showing a clear increase in the scale of weekly purchases.
Additional on-chain position data
Data cited by on-chain analyst ai_9684xtpa showed that Binance’s SAFU fund bought 15,000 BTC in February this year at an average price of about $66,666. Based on the current price cited in the article, that position was sitting on an unrealized gain of about $221 million.