Bitcoin posts surprise rally as currency nears $70,000 for the first time since June

Bitcoin has found some relief after months of selling pressure. On Wednesday, the cryptocurrency jumped nearly 6% to over $69,000, reclaiming a level it had not touched since early June. The jump came right after the Treasury Department announced that it would double purchases of older long-term government bonds.

“The market read this as a quiet form of quantitative easing, a move that weakens the dollar and sends scarce, debasement-hedge assets like Bitcoin higher,” Matt Mena, a senior strategist at crypto research firm 21Shares, told Fortune in a written statement.

Investors quickly piled into those assets, which in turn forced short sellers to cover roughly $1.5 billion in positions by buying Bitcoin in the market. That included purchases of about $700........

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