Bitcoin rally continues to break records, crossing $118,000 for another high

Bitcoin has been on a wild ride in the past 48 hours, hitting new all-time highs one after the other and crossing $118,000 yesterday. To put this in context, bitcoin was at $57,388 exactly one year ago — an over 100% jump.

Bitcoin hit a high of $118,667 early Friday morning, making bulls like Strategy’s Michael Saylor wax lyrical about the moment, posting on X, “The halls of eternity echo with the cries of those who sold their Bitcoin.”

Several drivers contributed to the rally, including:

• Enormous institutional flows. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust surpassed the $80 billion mark yesterday, making it the “fastest ETF to get there in 374 days,” Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas wrote.

• Strong regulatory momentum. The House of Representatives declared the week of July 14 “Crypto Week,” when lawmakers will consider the CLARITY Act and the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which the Senate passed last month. If the bill passes, it would be a watershed moment for the crypto industry. “The regulatory transformation in Washington has unleashed institutional demand that was bottled up for years, waiting for political clarity,” Les Borsai, cofounder of Wave Digital Assets, told Sherwood News.

• A big short squeeze. Robert Harrington, head of crypto and digital assets at Cantor, noted that as bitcoin breaks through all-time highs, short traders using perpetual futures get liquidated. “This liquidation simply acts as a market order, which adds to the velocity of bitcoin’s upside move,” he said.

Alice Liu, head of research at CoinMarketCap, echoed Harrington’s sentiment, saying that the rally was supercharged by a sharp short squeeze, amplifying the move in hours.

“This forced buying typically accelerates momentum in thin-liquidity environments, which explains what we saw here,” she said. 

CoinGlass data shows that more than $2 billion was liquidated on July 10, “the highest short liquidation in four years.”

Nic Puckrin, founder of Coin Bureau, cited another driver: bitcoin has actually held up really well during times of geopolitical turmoil, so the “safe haven” narrative is playing out.

“The new ATH isn't a surprise — what’s somewhat surprising is that we didn’t get here a little bit sooner,” Puckrin said. “This delay is mostly thanks to the uncertainty around tariffs, and it appears to have pushed the cycle out further than previous ones. As such, I don’t expect this to be the end of the cycle; there will most likely be another correction, before a final push to around $150,000 in Q1 or Q2 next year.”

Harrington echoed Puckrin’s comments. “It’s pretty clear that US government spending is not coming down, and US debt continues its structural move higher. This creates a great backdrop for bitcoin,” he said, agreeing that he could easily see bitcoin heading to $130,000 to $150,000 within a short period. “In reality, these are all small moves,” he added.

Other winners from this rally include crypto-adjacent stocks, many of which are also riding the bitcoin wave, including bitcoin miners MARA Holdings and Riot Platforms, while Strategy was up 3%.