Bitcoin surged over 25% on a record short squeeze and shifting regulatory momentum, climbing to an intraday peak of $79,500 according to IndexBox data, before settling near $77,700. The sharp advance followed a period where the leading digital currency remained locked in a tight band between $62,000 and $66,000 for six consecutive weeks, down significantly from its 2025 record high of approximately $126,000, as reported by IndexBox.
Record Short Liquidation Event Drives Price Action
Data from Investing.com indicates that Wednesday saw $2.7 billion in bearish crypto bets destroyed over a single 24-hour span, representing the largest short liquidation event in records dating back to 2021. Bitcoin briefly touched $69,900 before extending to $71,396.50 in premarket trade, up 3.4% on the session. Coinglass data showed that more than $1 billion of Bitcoin short positions were closed in roughly one hour, representing Bitcoin’s first-ever daily billion-dollar short liquidation volume.
Liquidation volumes were distributed across major trading venues. According to Investing.com data, Binance recorded approximately $517.6 million in liquidations over four hours, Hyperliquid recorded $513 million, and Bybit saw $303 million. The rapid price reversal caught market participants off guard who had accumulated short positions throughout the year, anticipating that weak performance would persist following a drop to a trough of about $57,600 in early July, as noted by IndexBox.
Washington Policy Shifts and White House Crypto Summit
The upward price movement coincided with significant policy developments in Washington. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump hosted crypto executives in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, according to Reuters reporting cited by Investing.com. Attendees included Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi, and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss of Gemini, alongside CFTC Chair Mike Selig and SEC Chair Paul Atkins.
During the summit, President Trump called on Congress to advance the Clarity Act. The regulatory outlook has evolved since the SEC published a 402-page proposed rulemaking titled “Regulation Crypto Assets” on August 18, which creates two federal offering pathways for crypto capital formation. SEC Chair Paul Atkins described the proposal as the most historic step yet to modernize federal securities regulations for crypto assets, while Citi analysts stated that the SEC is not waiting to implement changes.
Senate Majority Leader Thune scheduled a cloture vote for the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act for September 15 at 2:15 p.m. ET, designating it the Senate’s top priority upon return from recess, according to Investing.com. The bill previously passed the Senate Banking Committee 15-9 in May but requires 60 votes to clear procedural hurdles in the Senate.
Equities and Altcoins Rally on Broader Liquidity
Crypto-linked equities and alternative tokens shared in the market gains. Premarket trading figures reported by Investing.com showed Coinbase shares up 7.6%, Strategy rising 7.8%, Circle Internet Group climbing 5.6%, Robinhood Markets gaining 5.3%, MARA Holdings advancing 4.4%, Galaxy Digital adding 4.0%, Riot Platforms rising 3.5%, and Hut 8 gaining 2.9%.
IndexBox reported that Ether and other digital tokens also rallied on the positioning wave, supported by liquidity measures from the U.S. Treasury. The Treasury doubled the scale of its bond repurchases to soothe the fixed-income market, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pledged on Thursday to expand buybacks further, creating looser financial conditions that traditionally support riskier assets.
President Trump also noted during the White House gathering that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was striving to bring Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives platform, into the U.S. market in a fully lawful manner, according to IndexBox. That statement drove Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, up 25% within a day, with the asset subsequently trading near $74.
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