Bitcoin crosses $80,000 for first time since May on weaker dollar

Bitcoin crossed $80,000 for the first time since mid-May, touching $81,237.94 in Asian trading Tuesday, as a weaker dollar and Treasury bond buyback plans drew buyers back to crypto.

"The Treasury's move is exactly the type of thing bitcoin loves," Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, said, arguing the cryptocurrency was created partly as a way for investors to avoid such policy intervention.

Bitcoin has gained about 16 percent since President Donald Trump last week urged Congress to pass clearer crypto rules, pushing August gains to around 28 percent — the biggest monthly increase since November 2024. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs pulled in about $1.9 billion last week, the largest weekly inflow since October 2025, while more than $2.7 billion in bearish crypto positions were liquidated across the market, including over $1 billion in bitcoin shorts in roughly an hour when BTC broke above $69,500.

Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG, said a sustained break above current levels could pave the way for bitcoin to reach $95,000-$100,000. All eyes now turn to this week's core PCE inflation reading, which could determine whether the rally extends or stalls.

The final push above $80,000 came as the U.S. Treasury doubled its planned buybacks of long-dated government bonds through early November, financing the purchases with more short-term debt issuance. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's announcement weighed on the dollar and helped drive investors toward alternative assets, including bitcoin and gold, which climbed to a three-month high. A senior Treasury official reportedly suggested the department could tap roughly $1 trillion from its General Account to fund the expanded program.

The move has revived the so-called "debasement trade," in which concerns over efforts to contain bond yields shift pressure toward the currency and drive demand for physical and digital assets. "This prompted buyers to scramble into physical and digital assets as debasement trade fears re-emerged," Sycamore said.

Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey Group, said Bessent's messaging had strengthened expectations that U.S. policymakers may have less tolerance for a further rise in long-term yields, at least through the midterm elections. "That would create a relatively supportive macro backdrop for assets such as bitcoin and gold," Sun said.

From a technical perspective, bitcoin's breakout above $80,000 represents a critical test of prior resistance. The $74,000-$78,000 zone contains a meaningful supply of traders who bought during May's decline and have been sitting on losses. If bitcoin can establish itself above $80,000, that former resistance could turn into support. If it falls back below, those holders could become sellers. Support sits at $77,000-$76,500, with a clean break above $80,000 potentially opening the path toward $82,000-$85,000.

Bitcoin is now up roughly 38 percent from its late-June lows, when it briefly sank below $58,000. The rally has also lifted the broader crypto market, with Ethereum, XRP, and Solana posting even larger weekly gains than bitcoin itself. The coming days will test whether the move above $80,000 holds, with the PCE release and continued ETF flows likely to shape the next leg.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.