On Thursday morning, Bitcoin maintained its upward momentum, approaching the $72,000 mark, as a rally fueled by a statement from the U.S. Treasury Department showed no signs of slowing down. The surge received an additional boost following favorable comments from President Donald Trump during a meeting on August 19th with leaders from the cryptocurrency industry.
Data from Bitstamp showed Bitcoin rose to a session high of $71,992, with increasing buying pressure indicating a potential breakthrough above the $72,000 level later in the day. This gain increased Bitcoin's 24-hour advance to 11.3% and raised its market capitalization to $1.44 trillion.
Altcoins kept pace with Bitcoin's rally over the past 24 hours. Ethereum led the gains, rising 19% by 5:36 AM Eastern Standard Time (EST) after reaching a high just below $2,320. Other major tokens followed suit: XRP, SOL, DOGE, and Zcash posted double-digit gains.
In the derivatives market, the price surge led to the liquidation of leveraged short positions. According to Coinglass, liquidated Bitcoin short positions neared $1.7 billion—a significant jump from the $1.1 billion recorded Wednesday afternoon. The total market liquidation volume reached $3.35 billion, with liquidated short positions accounting for $3.07 billion.
Speaking at a meeting at the White House with technology sector leaders, top financial regulators, and cryptocurrency company executives, Trump emphasized that the U.S. is "significantly ahead" of others in cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence (AI). He reiterated that the U.S. is in a direct race with foreign competitors—particularly China—for leadership in cryptocurrency markets and fintech.
Some of the attending CEOs took the opportunity to urge Congress to pass the CLARITY Act, which is stalled in the Senate, to provide long-term legal certainty for domestic digital asset operations.
However, the White House event also sparked controversy after President Trump explicitly mentioned specific cryptocurrency protocols. In his remarks, Trump indicated that his administration is actively coordinating efforts to relocate the decentralized trading platform Hyperliquid to U.S. soil. This perceived support triggered an immediate speculative spike in the price of the HYPE token; building on the earlier gains fueled by Treasury statements, the token continued its rally, approaching the $74 mark—leaving it less than $3 away from reclaiming its all-time high of $76.87 set on June 16th.
Critics also noted the price action of $LINK after Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, addressed delegates at the event. While the previously announced switch by Wyoming from Layerzero to Chainlink's CCIP had caused a 3% price jump in $LINK to $9.70, the token subsequently rose to $10.86, resulting in an intraday gain of approximately 9%.
