Bitcoin briefly reached $80,000 before retreating to about $78,835 as traders assessed the Treasury’s expanded bond-buyback program and its potential liquidity effects. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has allowed the Treasury General Account, the government’s checking account at the Federal Reserve, to grow to about $950 billion, while the Treasury’s latest official cash statement showed $935.1 billion on August 20. The department doubled planned long-end buybacks on August 19, raising operations from $2 billion to at least $4 billion each, with the first scheduled for September 9. Because spending TGA cash transfers funds into bank reserves without expanding the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, traders have viewed the policy as supportive for liquidity and long-duration assets such as crypto. The 30-year Treasury yield fell from 5.31% on August 17 to 5.19% on August 19 before rebounding to 5.27% on August 21, then eased to 5.21% alongside a decline in the 10-year yield to 4.69% as Bitcoin reached $80,000. Citadel Securities called the approach financial repression and warned of dollar weakness and inflation, while Peter Schiff said it could shorten the average maturity of the national debt and lead to quantitative easing and runaway inflation. Benjamin Chabot questioned whether TGA-funded purchases would matter if the account must later be replenished, while Fundstrat’s Tom Lee said the shift favors long-duration assets, including crypto. The Treasury has not yet spent the account, making September 9 the first key test of the strategy. Separately, Schiff had questioned President Donald Trump’s reported reference to military intervention if Treasury buybacks failed to reduce long-term yields.