Bitcoin climbed above $79,000 in U.S. trading as cryptocurrency-linked shares rallied and traders rapidly unwound bearish futures positions, extending a sharp risk-on move across digital assets. The advance followed comments from U.S. President Donald Trump that the federal government could buy Bitcoin on a “large scale” in the future, alongside renewed calls for Congress to move forward with the CLARITY Act.
The market move was accompanied by sizable gains in public companies tied to cryptocurrency mining, trading and stablecoins. Canaan rose more than 25%, while MARA Holdings gained nearly 16% after advancing in the previous session. Strive was also up more than 16%, according to the market figures provided.
In early U.S. trading, Circle rose more than 9%, Coinbase gained more than 7%, and Strategy added more than 6%. Robinhood shares climbed 11.69% to $106.22, moving above the $106 level as crypto-related equities benefited from the same improvement in market sentiment.
Trump’s remarks placed Bitcoin purchasing by the U.S. government back into the market conversation, though no purchase plan, timing, funding mechanism or official policy proposal was outlined in the material provided. The comments arrived as lawmakers face renewed pressure to clarify which digital-asset activities fall under the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission and which would be overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Short liquidations amplified the move
A large wave of short-position liquidations appears to have accelerated Bitcoin’s advance. Aggregate cryptocurrency liquidations reached $2.987 billion on Aug. 19, according to liquidation data cited in the supplied report. Short positions accounted for about $2.739 billion of that total, while long liquidations stood near $248 million.
The reported short-liquidation total was described as the largest on record. When traders holding short futures positions are liquidated, exchanges close those positions by purchasing the underlying asset or offsetting the contract exposure. In a fast-moving market, that compulsory buying can reinforce a rally and force additional bearish positions out of the market.
Bitcoin’s 24-hour gain was reported at 7.32%, while Ethereum rose 6.88% and Solana added 5.98%. Dogecoin advanced 11.14%, and BNB gained 3.84% among the most actively traded tokens. Hyperliquid’s HYPE token traded above 77 USDT before last changing hands around 76.8 USDT, up 7.36% over 24 hours.
The move reached far beyond the largest cryptocurrencies. The gainers listed in the supplied market data included GALA, up 39.42%; Stacks, up 32.24%; Ethereum Name Service, up 28.71%; Bitcoin Cash, up 28.69%; and Zcash, up 28.24%. FLOKI, PEPE, Pudgy Penguins’ PENGU and Shiba Inu also posted gains exceeding 23%.
Such broad participation can indicate a market in which traders are willing to move beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum into smaller, more volatile assets. It can also leave the market exposed if leverage is high, since thinner order books in many smaller tokens can magnify both upward and downward price moves.
Leverage remains a source of volatility
Total open interest in cryptocurrency futures was reported near $47.8 billion across global platforms. Open interest measures the value of active derivatives contracts that have not yet been closed or settled. Elevated open interest does not determine price direction, but it creates conditions in which liquidation cascades can become more severe when prices move quickly.
The latest rally showed the effect on bearish positioning. With nearly $2.74 billion in reported short liquidations, traders betting on a decline were forced to close positions into a rising market. A reversal would create a different pressure point: leveraged long positions could face liquidation if Bitcoin and major altcoins retreat sharply.
The supplied data also pointed to roughly $3 billion in stablecoins minted by Circle and Tether over two days. New stablecoin issuance can reflect demand for settlement assets, treasury management or trading liquidity, but issuance alone does not establish that the funds are being deployed into Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
The global stablecoin market capitalization was reported above $306 billion. That figure represents a large pool of tokenized dollar liquidity within the digital-asset ecosystem, although stablecoin balances can remain idle, move between wallets, support decentralized finance activity or be redeemed rather than used to purchase volatile tokens.
Regulation returns to the foreground
Coinbase Chief Executive Officer Brian Armstrong said the CLARITY Act was expected to receive support from more than 60 senators on Sept. 15. The proposal is designed to define regulatory responsibilities between the SEC and CFTC, a division that could affect how crypto exchanges, token issuers, brokers and decentralized-finance projects structure their operations.
A clearer federal framework would give firms more direction on registration, disclosure and market-supervision requirements. The legislative process remains politically sensitive, particularly around the treatment of tokens that may be considered securities, oversight of stablecoins and the degree of authority granted to each regulator.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also published research describing “Local Mixing,” an approach to cryptographic obfuscation intended to improve the efficiency of indistinguishability obfuscation. The technique concerns advanced cryptography rather than near-term token trading, but it reflects continued work on privacy and computation methods that could eventually support more private or verifiable applications.
The immediate market story remains the combination of Bitcoin’s move above $79,000, political attention on federal crypto policy and an unusually large forced exit from bearish derivatives positions. Those factors lifted crypto-linked equities and high-beta tokens together, while the scale of futures open interest leaves price action vulnerable to another rapid unwind if momentum changes.
As Bitcoin nears $80K on Trump’s policy signals, explore deeper insights in our latest outlook here.
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