Daily liquidations of Bitcoin positions surged on Wednesday after the price of the leading digital asset flirted with $70,000. 

Over $1.7 billion in positions held by traders shorting the biggest cryptocurrency have been closed in the past 24 hours, according to Coinglass data. 

And the vast majority — $1.5 billion — of those positions were liquidated in the past four hours. 

Bitcoin on Wednesday morning traded briefly as high as $69,000 before dipping again. It was recently priced at $68,253 after jumping more than 5% over a 24-hour period. 

The price surge comes after bitcoin had largely been flat over the past 30 days. Analysts have pointed out that the coin’s volatility has been at record lows. 

Bitcoin has benefited — along with other “risk-on” assets — from news that the U.S. Treasury planned to more than double the size of its government debt repurchases. 

The announcement from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was aimed at taming yields, which had surged to levels not seen in nearly 20 years.

Lower long-term yields reduces the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold, and generally supports risk-on sentiment. 

Bitcoin may have also benefited from investors expecting pro-crypto regulatory news: President Trump on Wednesday will hold a meeting with crypto and prediction market executives. 

Despite a vote on the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act getting delayed, regulators are keen to press forward with rules that the industry has long called for. 

On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday a proposed framework for crypto asset offerings, pressing ahead despite the landmark legislation stalling.