Breakout or fakeout: BTC bulls and bears face off as price settles above $70K
- Bitcoin climbed above $72,000 this week after a U.S. Treasury buyback pushed bond yields lower.
- Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff has called the move a fakeout while urging a rotation into gold.
- Bulls, including Ki Young Ju and Adam Back, read the same week’s demand data and ETF inflows as the start of a new cycle.
Peter Schiff, a longtime Bitcoin critic, said on Thursday that BTC’s rise to above $72,000 is a false breakout built on a one-off Treasury move.
Bullish analysts, on the other hand, regard the same week’s data as the start of a fresh cycle for Bitcoin.
Will Bitcoin continue rising?
Bitcoin traded around $71,447 on Thursday, up about 9% over 24 hours. The price reached a high of around $72,397 during the day, according to CoinMarketCap, its highest since May 31.
Peter Schiff, who has long been critical of BTC, told his followers to “Sell Bitcoin” and instead buy gold, arguing that the recent rally is due to a surprise announcement from the U.S. Treasury.
The U.S. Treasury announced that it would double its long-term bond buybacks. The limit for each operation was raised from $2 billion to at least $4 billion, causing the 30-year bond yield to drop from over 5.34%, which was its highest in 19 years, to about 5.196%.
In a follow-up post, Schiff said Treasury yields have already started climbing again and that the buyback announced so far is too small to change that. Stopping the trend, he argued, would take a much larger buyback plus an official quantitative easing program from the Federal Reserve.
“Got gold?” he added, reinforcing his view that any weakening of the dollar helps gold more durably than it helps Bitcoin.
In early October 2025, Schiff declared that Bitcoin was in a bear market.
Are the bulls right about BTC?
Ki Young Ju of CryptoQuant pointed out that Bitcoin demand has turned positive across both spot and perpetual futures for the first time since the October 2025 all-time high. He said that if the pattern holds for another month, it would be fair to conclude a new bull cycle has begun.
Adam Back is even more optimistic, saying he believes BTC can hit $1 million. He sees that price as the point where Bitcoin’s total value would match gold’s. Back plans to explain his reasoning in person at the Bitcoin Treasuries Conference on September 28.
Institutional flows also support the bulls for now. U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in more than $1 billion between Monday and Wednesday, a complete reversal from $389.7 million in outflows the prior week. BTC whales have added roughly $2.75 billion worth of the token over 60 days.
Investor confidence also got a boost after President Donald Trump met with executives from Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), Payward, and Blockchain.com. The meeting raised hopes that the stalled Clarity Act might move forward again. The Senate is expected to discuss it again in mid-September.
Data from Deribit showed that traders had $1.5 billion worth of BTC call options at the $70,000 price level. They also had $1.4 billion in put options at the $60,000 level.
Bitcoin’s highest price was above $126,000 last October. After that, it dropped sharply, which started the current bear market.
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FAQs
Why does Peter Schiff think Bitcoin's rally is a fakeout?
Schiff argues the climb above $72,000 was driven by a surprise Treasury buyback rather than a durable shift, and he says yields are already rising again, so he told followers to sell Bitcoin and buy gold.
What triggered Bitcoin's move above $70,000?
The US Treasury said it would at least double its long-end bond buybacks to a minimum of $4 billion per operation, which pushed the 30-year yield down from above 5.34% to about 5.196% and lifted risk assets.
What is the bull case for the current rally?
CryptoQuant's Ki Young Ju said Bitcoin demand turned positive in both spot and perpetual futures for the first time since October 2025, and Adam Back said he believes $1 million Bitcoin is "closer than people think."
Disclaimer. The information provided is not trading advice. Cryptopolitan.com holds no liability for any investments made based on the information provided on this page. We strongly recommend independent research and/or consultation with a qualified professional before making any investment decisions.
Hannah Collymore
Hannah is a writer and editor with nearly a decade of blog writing and event reporting experience in the crypto space. At Cryptopolitan, Hannah contributes to the news page, reporting and analyzing the latest developments in DeFi, RWA, crypto regulation, AI and frontier tech industries. She graduated from Arcadia university with a degree in Business Administration.
