Bitcoin's bounce

Bitcoin just had itself a week.

• The cryptocurrency is up nearly 20% from where it was on Wednesday morning.

🤔 So are the bitcoin bulls back?

• The jury's still out, Axios' Pete Gannon writes.

Catch up quick: Bitcoin, which had been languishing below a price of $65,000 since early June, jolted to life Wednesday morning, when the Treasury Department announced plans to step up buybacks of long-dated Treasury securities.

• At first, it smelled of a regular old risk-on trade, with stocks moving up alongside the move in crypto.
• But bitcoin kept on rallying as stocks fizzled, when bond yields sprung right back.

🔍 Between the lines: Treasury's apparent signal that the government would be willing to step in to fight rising yields, has revived the debasement trade — and that's been good for assets like bitcoin and gold.

• Crypto also got a boost from Trump urging Congress to pass the Clarity Act, and from the SEC outlining new rules for issuance.

Another factor at work is a sizable short squeeze, with about $2.5 billion of bitcoin short positions liquidated over the past three days, according to CoinGlass data.

• That means that the initial price rally has been juiced by forced buying.

🗣️ What they're saying: "I'd be cautious about calling this the end of the bear market," AdLunam market analyst Jason Fernandes told CoinDesk.

• Without new money coming in and interest rates easing, "my concern is that [bitcoin] could run out of steam at overhead resistance," he said.