Bitcoin jumped as much as 8.7% on Wednesday to an intraday high of $69,749, its steepest one-day move since March 4 and its highest price since June 1.

On Myriad, prediction odds flipped from roughly 70-30 favoring a bearish decline to a near coin flip within 24 hours.

The rally followed a U.S. Treasury plan to double its long-bond buybacks and more than $1 billion in short liquidations wiped out across crypto in a single hour.

Bitcoin ripped through $69,000 on Wednesday, climbing as much as 8.7% to an intraday high of $69,749 — the steepest one-day move since March 4 and the highest price Bitcoin has touched since June 1. Traders had not seen a green candle like this in more than five months.

So where does Bitcoin go next? The charts have one read, and prediction markets have another. A mere 24 hours ago, traders on Myriad — a prediction market operated by Decrypt's parent company — were sure there was more pain in store for Bitcoin ahead. Now it is a coin flip, with odds moving fast. What a difference a squeeze makes.

The trigger for the big move does not appear to be crypto-native. The U.S. Treasury said Wednesday it will at least double its long-bond buybacks, from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation starting September 9, pushing long-end yields down and weakening the dollar. Treasury has been running regular buybacks of older, off-the-run securities since 2024 to support market liquidity; Wednesday's announcement doubles the size of those operations. These types of moves typically bode well for risk assets like crypto because they loosen financial conditions: lower yields cut the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset like Bitcoin, and a weaker dollar makes dollar-priced assets cheaper for foreign buyers — the same dynamic analysts have already nicknamed "QE Lite."

Here Comes QE Lite: Yields, Dollar Tumble, Gold Spikes After Treasury Unexpectedly Doubles Size Of Long-End Treasury Buybacks — zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 19, 2026

The timing also lined up with a White House meeting between crypto executives and regulators, plus a fresh SEC proposal easing registration rules for some digital-asset offerings. It was a perfect storm, in the best way for crypto bulls, and the move overextended fast.

CoinGlass's liquidation panel showed $1.14 billion in shorts wiped out across crypto in a single hour, with Bitcoin alone accounting for $677.64 million of that. Liquidations on that scale compound the very move they measure: forced closures of short positions require buying, which pushes prices higher and trips the next wave of liquidations — the mechanics behind a short squeeze. Crypto-linked stocks followed the squeeze higher, with Strategy up nearly 12%, Coinbase up 9%, and Circle and BitMine both gaining roughly 9-10% on the day.

Prediction markets scramble to catch up

Nobody saw it coming, and prediction markets are showing it. Myriad's "BTC next move" market — wagering on a pump to $84,000 against a dump to $55,000 — had traders leaning roughly 70% toward the dump just days ago. By Wednesday afternoon, those odds had collapsed to a near coin flip: 51.9% on $55K, 48.1% on $84K.

The swing is not isolated to Myriad. Polymarket's flagship 2026 Bitcoin price market was pricing a 56% chance BTC touched $55,000 before year-end and just 51% odds of a run to $75,000 as of last week.

On Kalshi, traders were even more cautious, giving Bitcoin a 54% shot at clearing $67,500 in August and 31% at $70,000 — both thresholds Bitcoin blew through Wednesday. That monthly one-touch contract settles August 31, giving the near-term odds a hard deadline less than two weeks out.

The split is the story. Near-term predictors were caught flat-footed by a 7% green day they had not priced, while year-end markets barely flinched. Prediction markets have been setting volume records as more traders hedge real positions with them, which makes Wednesday's Myriad flip less a forecast than a recap of who got squeezed.

The next line in the sand sits at $70,284, the lower edge of a resistance band on Bitcoin's chart. A daily close above it opens room toward $73,245; losing $68,000 drags Bitcoin back inside the range that has trapped it since June. The calendar supplies its own checkpoints: Kalshi's August contracts resolve at month-end, and the first of the enlarged $4 billion Treasury buyback operations is scheduled for September 9.