Bessent's $4B+ Treasury Buyback Expansion Fuels Bitcoin (BTC) Rally

Bitcoin (BTC) climbed from the $64K area to above $75K in two sessions, reaching its highest level since late May after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled an expansion of the government's buyback program for 10-year to 30-year Treasuries. Bessent said the next monthly operation, expected to launch in September, could exceed the $4 billion figure the market had been anticipating, effectively casting the Treasury as an “ultimate buyer” at the long end of the curve. The program is designed to improve liquidity in longer-dated government debt and keep a lid on long-term borrowing costs; Bessent framed the broader policy stance as “deflationary expansion,” arguing that strong growth and productivity gains — not inflation — would eventually absorb the country's debt load. He also described energy as the only “temporary” inflation driver and said the dollar has stabilized after retreating from its earlier highs. Bessent acknowledged that the current corporate issuance wave creates temporary competition for capital, but he argues the proceeds are funding capital expenditure, AI and advanced infrastructure, which should lift productivity and keep price pressures contained. The fixed-income response was immediate. Long-end Treasury prices found support, and Citi advised clients to buy 20-year notes. Spot gold advanced to $4,530, a level not seen since early June. The Treasury's heavier footprint in the 10- to 30-year sector also caps how far real yields can rise, a constraint that supports gold and digital assets. For crypto assets, the mechanism is a discount-rate repricing: lower long-end yields raise the present value of future cash flows, which tends to favor high-beta investments. Bitcoin broke above $75K early in the session, forcing short sellers to cover, a reminder of how quickly AI trading bots and algorithmic strategies can amplify breakouts. COINOTAG's live data showed BTC near $74,657 at the time of writing, with the broader altcoin complex following bitcoin's lead.

A separate fixed-income signal emerged in Asia, where foreign investors have turned net sellers of South Korean Treasury bonds. Cumulative net selling reached 1.538 trillion won this month as of Aug. 21, according to bond market data, after foreigners bought more than 14 trillion won in May and over 12 trillion won in June. The selling was concentrated in the short-to-intermediate segment. Foreign accounts sold 495.6 billion won of the 25-1 issue, which matures in March next year, and 490.2 billion won of the 23-10 issue maturing in December; the current two-year benchmark, 26-1, saw 229.2 billion won of net sales. At the same time, those investors were net buyers at the long end, adding 694.4 billion won of the 30-year benchmark 26-2, 594 billion won of the 20-year 25-9, and 488.4 billion won of the 10-year 26-6. Dealers attributed the rotation to a fading carry-arbitrage incentive. The one-year swap basis narrowed to -19.00 basis points after having widened to -54.50 basis points in mid-June; the narrower the basis, the less attractive the hedge-and-carry trade becomes once currency hedging costs are included. One foreign bank desk said the trade has moved close to negative carry, leaving foreigners with little reason to hold short bills. Traders also cited the Bank of Korea's policy trajectory, with the terminal rate coming into view and short-end paper offering little return after hedging. South Korea's finance ministry set August Treasury issuance at 17 trillion won, with the largest supply slices in 2-year, 3-year and 30-year maturities. The split between short-dated selling and long-dated buying suggests foreigners are repositioning duration rather than exiting Korean fixed income altogether. For crypto markets, this is a second-order variable: Korean bond flows influence the won and local liquidity, but BTC and Ethereum (ETH) prices are far more sensitive to global dollar funding conditions than to foreign positioning in Korean government debt.

Read together, the two stories show governments repricing duration and foreign investors rotating across the yield curve. COINOTAG aggregate data puts the Fear & Greed Index at 72/100 (Greed), Bitcoin dominance at 69.2% of our tracked universe and total tracked market cap near $2.164 trillion. Decentralized lending protocols such as Aave are a useful sentiment gauge in this environment. The immediate question is whether long-duration support holds — a macro variable that matters more to Bitcoin than any single all-time-high target.