Bitcoin climbed back above $72,000 on Thursday, touching its highest level since a June flash crash, as a two-day rally liquidated more than $3 billion in short positions across the crypto market.

The largest cryptocurrency reached an intraday high of $72,408 before easing to trade near $71,423, up 3.07% on the day. That is the highest Bitcoin has traded since June 2, when a flash crash knocked the price from roughly $71,765 to $67,895 in a single session — the opening move in a slide that eventually dragged Bitcoin to a 21-month low near $57,832 by the end of June. The rally, now in its second day, has added close to 15% since Monday.

Short sellers' worst two days on record

Bitcoin's short sellers are enduring their worst two days on record: more than $3 billion in short positions were liquidated across crypto in the past 24 hours alone, taking out over 190,000 traders.

Short positions are bets that Bitcoin's price will fall, placed by traders who borrow and sell the asset planning to buy it back cheaper later. When the price rises instead, exchanges force-close those trades once a trader's collateral can no longer cover the loss, a process called a liquidation. That mechanic was already visible during Wednesday's squeeze, when Bitcoin first cleared $70,000 — a round-number threshold that traders often treat as a psychological marker.

Per Coinglass, a crypto derivatives data tracker, 174,416 traders were liquidated in the past 24 hours, with total liquidations of $2.85 billion — figures that add to yesterday's tally. Each forced buyback pushes the price higher, which trips the next layer of shorts: a feedback loop traders call a short squeeze.

Macro catalyst

The macroeconomic background cannot be ignored when searching for a catalyst behind Bitcoin's big moves this week. The U.S. Treasury said Wednesday it would at least double its long-bond buybacks — purchases of the government's own debt meant to support demand and ease borrowing costs — raising the cap from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation on 10-to-30-year securities starting September 9. The Treasury has run regular buyback operations since 2023, mainly as a liquidity-management tool for the government bond market.

The Treasury's move pulled bond yields down and weakened the dollar, a combination analysts have nicknamed "QE Lite," after the Fed's old bond-buying stimulus programs, because it loosens financial conditions in a similar way. Bitcoin pays no yield and is priced in dollars, which is why shifts in rates and the currency are watched closely across crypto markets. The announcement landed hours before a White House meeting where President Trump sat down with crypto executives from Coinbase, Ripple, and Robinhood, among others.

Sentiment flipped as fast as price. On Myriad, the prediction market run by Decrypt's parent company, traders betting on Bitcoin's next move had leaned 70% toward a dump to $55,000 a day earlier; by Wednesday afternoon, the odds had collapsed to almost 50-50.

Bitcoin's death cross test

Thursday's spike is also the most forceful test yet of Bitcoin's death cross, the pattern that forms when the 50-day exponential moving average, or EMA, falls below the 200-day EMA — a signal traders read as confirmation that short-term momentum has turned against the longer-term trend.

Bitcoin's cross formed on November 16, 2025, six weeks after the coin's record high near $126,198, and has held ever since. Bears have had nine months to get comfortable with that setup. As of Thursday afternoon, Bitcoin still hadn't closed decisively above both lines. The chart hasn't flipped — yet. The pattern's mirror image, a golden cross, is read as a bullish signal, and because moving averages are built from past prices, traders treat crossovers as a read on the trend already in place rather than a forecast.

Blockchain analytics firm Glassnode measured just how sharp the move was, calling it "its largest upside shock since October 2023" relative to Bitcoin's recent volatility.

Crypto-linked stocks caught the same updraft, with Strategy jumping nearly 12% and Coinbase climbing 9% this week. Spot Bitcoin ETFs added $517 million in net inflows Wednesday, their largest single-day haul since May, per SoSoValue. The U.S.-listed funds, launched in January 2024, hold Bitcoin directly and let stock-market investors buy exposure through an ordinary brokerage account, which is why their daily flows are watched as a barometer of institutional demand.

The next Treasury buyback operation under the expanded program begins September 9, when the same 10-to-30-year securities get another round of purchases.