Bitcoin just notched its biggest weekly gain in more than three years, putting an end to a summer of stagnation. Crypto traders can thank US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whose plan to boost bond buybacks spurred the move. But it will take more than that to return this market to genuinely bullish territory.
The 23% jump was largely down to Bitcoin’s part in the ‘dollar debasement’ trade, an occasional flight to alternative assets prompted by worries about America’s heavy borrowing and the White House’s eccentric policymaking.
Bessent’s intervention deepened such fears, although the world’s largest cryptocurrency has already started to plateau again after topping $80,000 last week.
Investors are right to be cautious. The experience of October’s brutal Bitcoin sell-off, after it hit a peak of more than $126,000, showed why narratives about what powers its value often fail to stick.
Some traders have persistently touted crypto as an effective dollar hedge alongside the markets’ perennial haven, gold. But October’s big crash—when Bitcoin slumped more than 12% after US President Donald Trump renewed tariff threats against China—put paid to that idea. Gold, meanwhile, rose to a record high.
Bitcoin has long been in search of an established story to show that it has fundamental worth, and is not just a pure speculative asset—a hunt that has become more necessary since it entered its teenage years and piqued the interest of heavyweight institutional money managers. It is telling that it still hasn’t settled on a consistent or persuasive narrative.
A digital version of gold is the typical rationale for Bitcoin fanatics, who also position it as a hedge against rising inflation. As in October, that idea hasn’t borne much fruit this year. The price of gold is up more than 7% so far in 2026. Bitcoin is down nearly 10% even after the recent bounce.
And last week’s jump, where both gold and Bitcoin rose handsomely, hardly provides an apple-to-apple comparison. Much of the crypto surge was down to traders who had been betting on the price falling and hadn’t anticipated a turnaround. They were then forced to buy crypto to cover their short positions.
Gold just performed as you would expect. A leading Bitcoin bull, Strategy Inc chairman Michael Saylor urged traders to buy more of the digital currency during the spike, while refraining from adding to his company’s own stash.
The prospect of favourable regulation is another popular tale that’s used to console Bitcoin fans. Trump loves digital assets; he has launched several crypto ventures in his second term and pressured Congress to pass legislation last year on stablecoins, which are often backed by the dollar.
All of that has helped benefit the president. He reported at least $1.4 billion in crypto-related earnings in 2025, by far his largest source of income. It included more than $594 million in sales by World Liberty Financial, a company he co-founded with his sons that has its own dollar-pegged coin.
His meeting with crypto executives shortly after Bessent’s bombshell on bond buying last week looked like happy timing. It bolstered the price of Bitcoin at an opportune moment.
Trump’s attention has now turned to the US Clarity Act, a market-structure bill that promises to provide the guardrails needed to encourage greater crypto adoption on Wall Street. But the actions of lawmakers and regulators can be unpredictable at the best of times.
The bill’s progress has stalled, not least because of infighting over ethics provisions that would limit Trump’s own involvement in the sector. The US Senate is not expected to revisit the legislation until mid-September, leaving little time for full approval before November’s mid-term elections.
And absent from any of the above is a real knockout story that sets crypto apart from other assets in a way that matches the claims of its pioneers. Bitcoin began as a way to liberate money from the grasp of traditional financial systems, a decentralized form of digital cash that would prioritize privacy and equal access above everything else.
That promise continues to go unfulfilled. People still prefer to use stablecoins or real-world cash and equivalents to actually buy things. Attempts to kickstart a Bitcoin-only economy have been largely abandoned.
And yet, there is no shame in taking Bitcoin at face value. Every asset starts somewhere, and even gold had to start its journey as a medium of exchange a couple of millennia or more ago.
Maybe the cryptocurrency will achieve all the dreams its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto hoped for. Or it could remain just as it is today: a tool for speculation that provides a chance to make some money—as long as your stomach for risk is strong enough to bear it. ©Bloomberg
The author writes about digital finance for Bloomberg Opinion.