Bitcoin price surged past $68,000 late Wednesday as a break above crowded liquidation levels forced short sellers to buy back positions, turning a gradual recovery into a one-minute price spike of roughly 4%.

Market analyst Daan Crypto Trades said in an Aug. 19 X post that Bitcoin experienced a “massive squeeze” after crossing the $67,000 liquidation cluster. He said the resulting one-minute candle gained about 4%, exceeding the size of any full daily candle recorded in recent weeks.

Bitcoin price clears a two-month trading range

According to data from crypto.news, Bitcoin (BTC) price traded near $68,500 at the time of writing after reaching an intraday high of about $69,500 on Binance. The move represented a gain of nearly 6% from Wednesday’s opening price of around $64,725.

The rally followed several weeks of limited movement between approximately $62,000 and $66,000. Buyers had repeatedly failed to hold above $65,000, encouraging traders to build leveraged short positions around the upper end of that range.

Bitcoin reversed the setup within minutes. Once BTC price crossed $67,000, exchanges began closing positions that no longer had enough collateral, requiring short sellers to buy Bitcoin and adding further upward pressure.

The broader crypto market recorded more than $1 billion in short liquidations within one hour as Bitcoin climbed above $69,000. Total crypto short liquidations later reached $1.79 billion, suggesting that forced buying played a major role in accelerating the rally.

The three-day CoinGlass heatmap shows Bitcoin moving through multiple liquidation bands between $65,000 and $67,500 before reaching the upper cluster near $69,000. Much of the liquidity that had built above the previous trading range was therefore removed during the spike.

Treasury buybacks and SEC proposal support risk appetite

The squeeze followed a U.S. Treasury announcement that it would at least double the maximum size of liquidity-support buybacks for longer-dated government bonds.

Starting Sept. 9, the Treasury plans to raise the maximum purchase size for 10- to 30-year securities from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation. Long-term Treasury yields fell after the announcement, while the dollar weakened and US stocks advanced.

Lower bond yields can improve demand for risk assets by reducing the return available from government debt, although the Treasury described its purchases as a way to improve market liquidity rather than a monetary stimulus program.

Bitcoin also benefited from a more favorable US regulatory backdrop after the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed its new “Regulation Crypto Assets” framework on Aug. 18.

According to the SEC proposal, the framework would create tailored registration exemptions for certain crypto-related investment contracts. One exemption would allow eligible startups to raise up to $5 million over four years, while another would permit qualifying issuers to raise as much as $75 million in a 12-month period, subject to disclosures and other requirements.

The proposal has not taken effect and may change following public feedback. Its publication nevertheless added to expectations that US crypto companies could receive clearer fundraising rules.

Bitcoin breakout targets the $69,000 resistance zone

The 4-hour Bitcoin chart shows a double-bottom structure formed between late July and mid-August. Both lows developed near $62,200, while the neckline sat around $65,400.

Wednesday’s move broke through that neckline with one large candle, placing Bitcoin roughly $3,000 above the former resistance level. The pattern’s measured move points toward the $68,500–$69,000 region, which Bitcoin reached during the breakout.

Capital flow also strengthened alongside the price. The 4-hour Chaikin Money Flow reading rose to 0.26, indicating that buying pressure outweighed selling pressure during the move.

Short-term conditions have become stretched, however. The 4-hour relative strength index reached 83.49, well above the 70 level commonly associated with an overbought market. The RSI average stood near 69, showing how quickly momentum increased.

An overbought RSI does not require an immediate decline, especially during a short squeeze, but it raises the risk of profit-taking or a retest of the breakout. The long upper wick near $69,500 shows that sellers already responded above $69,000.

On the daily chart, Bitcoin reclaimed its 100-day simple moving average around $66,288. Price remained slightly below the 200-day average near $69,031, making the $69,000–$70,000 area the next test for the recovery.

A daily close above that zone would improve the case for a move toward $72,000. Analyst Ted Pillows identified $74,000 as the more important weekly level, arguing that reclaiming it would reduce the likelihood of Bitcoin falling below $55,000.

Failure to hold the breakout could return attention to $67,000, followed by the former neckline around $65,400. The strongest nearby support cluster visible on the liquidation heatmap sits between approximately $64,000 and $65,500.

Advertisement

ETF demand and weaker selling preceded Bitcoin breakout

Before Bitcoin broke above $65,700 on Wednesday evening, the Bitfinex analyst team told crypto.news that fading profit-taking and renewed spot ETF demand had created a more supportive supply setup.

The analysts said Bitcoin had begun rising while US equities fell, marking a break from the cross-asset pattern seen after the Iran-US conflict disrupted correlations in early March. At the time, rising Treasury yields and energy prices continued to pressure traditional markets while Bitcoin remained below $65,000.

On-chain spending also suggested that sellers had less capacity to realize gains. Bitfinex analysts said long-term holders who moved coins were recording small losses, while short-term holders were selling close to their purchase prices.

“Long-term holders are realising losses, albeit minimal, at the deepest ratios since June, short-term holders are transacting at break-even and the aggregate profit ratio of every coin moved on-chain has now closed below par for 10 consecutive sessions.”

The ratio between long-term and short-term holder spent output profit ratios had declined steadily since Bitcoin reached its $126,110 all-time high in October 2025. Short-term-holder distribution still exceeded selling by long-term holders, which Bitfinex described as a signal commonly associated with the later stages of a bear market.

Advertisement

“The supply available to be spent at a profit is increasingly constrained, and the constraint favours bullish price action by mitigating selling interest at the range highs,” the analysts said.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs added to that tightening supply. Bitfinex reported that the funds attracted $297.5 million on Aug. 17, their largest daily inflow of the month, followed by another $189.3 million on Aug. 18. The two sessions produced the first back-to-back net inflows since Aug. 7.

Bitfinex had identified $65,700 as the level Bitcoin needed to clear to extend its recovery. The later breakout carried BTC through that threshold and into the short liquidation clusters above $67,000, where forced buying accelerated the move toward $69,500.

The analysts linked the reduced selling pressure to a longer process of clearing coins held by investors who bought more than two years earlier.

Advertisement

“In December, we expressed that long-term holder sell pressure approaches saturation as the two-year supply overhang clears,” Bitfinex said. “This is what the terminal stage of that process looks like in the tape.”

The breakout supports the analysts’ supply-side assessment, although holding above $65,700 remains important. A return below that level would suggest the move was driven mainly by forced short covering, while continued ETF inflows and firm spot volume would provide stronger evidence of sustained demand.

Zhang’s broader outlook still warns against chasing

Zhang offered a more cautious view of Bitcoin’s longer-term position, arguing that signs of a bottoming process did not yet confirm a durable market bottom.

When Bitget Wallet’s research analyst spoke to crypto.news, Bitcoin price was trading between $64,000 and $64,700 after spending several weeks inside a $62,000–$66,000 range. She cited moderate leverage, compressed volatility, and slower selling by long-term holders as factors that reduced the likelihood of a sharp move in either direction.

Advertisement

“Bitcoin is showing signs of a bottoming process, but not a confirmed bottom,” Zhang said before the rally.

“If $60,000–$62,000 support holds, the setup offers asymmetric upside; confirmation of a durable bottom still requires sustained volume and less fear.”

The subsequent move invalidated the immediate expectation that Bitcoin would remain confined below $66,000, but it did not settle Zhang’s broader question about whether the market has established a durable low. The breakout relied partly on forced short covering, while the 4-hour RSI and rejection near the 200-day average leave room for a pullback.

Zhang expects Bitcoin to trade within a broad $55,000–$80,000 range through year-end. Holding above $65,400 after the initial squeeze would provide stronger evidence that spot buyers, rather than liquidations alone, can support the latest recovery.

Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.

Advertisement

US President Donald Trump continued to push for passage of a crypto market structure bill as the Senate remains in recess.

In a Wednesday press conference with crypto company executives including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Trump said members of Congress should pass “a fair version” of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act to keep the US “ahead of China.” The market structure bill, passed by the House of Representatives in July 2025, has been stalled in the Senate for months amid concerns about tokenized equities, stablecoin rewards and the Trump family’s potential conflicts of interest with the crypto industry.

Armstrong, who spoke after Trump and US regulatory heads, said that the bill would make crypto policies in the US “durable into the future, so it could survive for decades and decades to come.” The Coinbase CEO speculated that the bill could have “more than 60 votes” once the Senate addressed a cloture motion on Sept. 15.

“It’s very bipartisan, I would say,” said Trump following Armstrong’s comments. “Lot of Democrats support.”

The president pushed for Congress to pass CLARITY in July following the death of Senator Lindsey Graham. Trump said that Graham had been a “big supporter” of the bill, and lawmakers in the Senate should advance CLARITY in his honor.

Crypto company executives’ remarks to the press came one day before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) was scheduled to hold an Innovation Advisory Committee meeting. CFTC Chair Michael Selig said the agency would explore moving forward on crypto regulations at the meeting, as Congress wouldn’t be returning to session for another month. 

The White House meeting happened the same week that the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed crypto rules offering companies a safe harbor from tokens being treated as “investment contracts” and certain exemptions for token issuance.

Related: SEC proposes new crypto rules in absence of CLARITY Act

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Geo founder Yaniv Tal has identified four weaknesses in online information that he says make AI answers unreliable: lost provenance, flattened authority, hidden disagreement, and repeated model-generated errors.

Geo founder Yaniv Tal told crypto.news that unreliable AI answers often begin with the material models receive, arguing that the internet was designed to distribute information rather than preserve its authority, origin, or accountability.

“AI doesn’t have a truth problem, the internet does,” Tal said.

According to Tal, information loses critical context as websites scrape and republish it. A claim may pass through several pages before entering a training set, leaving a model with the statement but no clear route back to its original source.

Authority also becomes difficult to measure when a research paper, company announcement, and anonymous forum post enter the same data pipeline as text. Tal said models may then treat material with different standards of evidence as if it carries similar weight.

“Provenance collapses. A claim gets scraped, restated, and re-scraped until the original source is unrecoverable,” he said.

Geo founder identifies four failures behind unreliable AI answers

Disagreement creates another problem because language models often combine competing positions into one response. Tal said such compression can hide genuine disputes among qualified experts, giving users a single confident answer without showing that credible alternatives exist.

The fourth weakness arises when AI-generated material returns to the data supply used by later models. Errors can survive repeated publication, while synthetic articles, posts, and summaries make it harder to locate the human-produced material from which a claim originated.

“Models increasingly train on output from other models, so errors don’t just persist, they amplify,” Tal said.

Independent research has documented a related risk. A 2024 Nature study examined what happens when generative models repeatedly learn from material produced by earlier models. Researchers described “model collapse” as a process in which systems gradually lose information about the original data distribution.

Less common material began disappearing during the early stages of the experiments, according to the paper, while later model generations produced distributions bearing little resemblance to the source data. Researchers said access to original, human-produced information remains important as AI-generated material spreads across the internet.

Tal does not classify the four weaknesses as failures confined to model design. In his account, models reproduce flaws already embedded in their training material, including missing sources and a lack of visible distinctions between evidence, opinion, and promotion.

Human verification would rank claims without removing disagreement

Geo’s proposed answer starts by separating a statement from its author and the evidence supporting it. Relationships between entries can show whether one argument supports another, contradicts it, or responds directly to a disputed point.

Once those links are recorded, Geo can order arguments by their assessed strength while retaining competing material beneath them, Tal said. The structure is intended to keep disagreement available without displaying every contribution as an undifferentiated comment feed.

“Pluralism doesn’t have to mean noise,” Tal said. “We think several well-structured competing perspectives is often the more honest answer.”

Geo organizes information through independent communities called Spaces. Its current website lists initial Spaces covering crypto, health, AI, education, world affairs, and US politics.

Members can contribute and participate in discussions, while people with relevant knowledge can apply to become editors. According to Geo, its curator program asks participants to evaluate sources, connect arguments, and add structured information to an open knowledge graph.

The model was developed from Geo Genesis, which entered early access in January 2025. As previously reported, its default governance structure divided participants into Editors and Members. Editors received voting authority, while Members could contribute information to individual Spaces.

Built on the Aragon OSx governance framework, Geo Genesis followed the release of GRC-20, a standard for representing connected knowledge. The Graph said in June 2025 that GRC-20 could let communities publish structured information onchain and retrieve it through subgraphs and Substreams.

Tal, who co-founded The Graph before starting Geo, said expertise would not be assigned by one central authority under the proposed system. Contributors would build a reputation through their work, and Geo intends for that record to follow a person between Spaces.

“Human judgment is the scarce input now, not the redundant one. Machines generate more content than people can process, and almost none of it has anyone accountable for its truth.”

Community governance still faces an identity problem

A human-run knowledge network must still determine whether contributors are genuine, qualified, and independent. Open governance systems can face Sybil attacks, in which one participant creates multiple identities to gain influence over voting, rankings, or rewards.

A June 2026 explainer examined how biometric checks, social trust networks, and zero-knowledge identity tools attempt to verify unique people. Each method involves trade-offs between privacy, attack resistance, accessibility, and control, while AI can help attackers create convincing personas at low cost.

Tal said Geo would rely on contribution records and domain-specific communities rather than allowing anonymous material to carry the same status as claims attached to people with public histories. Editors would apply through individual Spaces, and members would take part in governing the subjects they follow.

“Skin in the game without financial stakes changes the quality of what people are willing to put their name to,” Tal said.

The approach does not remove the need to decide who selects editors, how communities resolve coordinated manipulation, or whether expertise earned in one subject should carry weight in another. Tal described the gatekeeper issue as real but argued that independent Spaces would prevent one institution from controlling every field.

Human involvement has also gained attention in crypto security, where automated tools may detect malicious activity, but users still authorize transactions. In May 2026, a Ledger security report described manual verification and clear transaction displays as safeguards against AI-assisted phishing, fake interfaces, and automated scams.

Onchain records separate transactions from surrounding claims

Crypto is one of Geo’s first Spaces because blockchain activity offers a direct test of the difference between verifiable records and human interpretation, Tal said.

A blockchain can confirm that a transaction occurred at a recorded address and block. It cannot, without additional evidence, establish who controls the address, why funds moved, whether activity was organic, or what a project plans to do next.

“On-chain data is verifiable by construction. A transaction happened or it didn’t,” Tal said. “Everything wrapped around it is claims.”

Project announcements, partnership descriptions, market forecasts, and explanations of token movements therefore require separate treatment, according to Tal. Geo intends to attach such claims to named contributors and preserve their records, including earlier statements that proved wrong.

Promotional activity makes the distinction especially important in digital-asset markets, where teams may present selected metrics beside verifiable transaction data. Tal said a trustworthy knowledge layer should label the categories rather than presenting both in the same voice.

US guidance also calls for provenance and human review

For US developers and companies deploying generative AI, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has recommended several controls that overlap with parts of Tal’s argument.

NIST’s Generative AI Profile, published in July 2024, advises organizations to document training-data sources, monitor the origin of generated material, and evaluate feedback between provenance systems and human reviewers. The voluntary framework also calls for domain experts and affected communities to take part in certain assessments.

Content provenance standards offer another method for recording where digital material originated. The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity uses cryptographically signed Content Credentials to preserve information about who created or changed an asset and how it was edited.

Under the C2PA specification, however, validated provenance does not determine whether an attached claim is good, bad, or truthful. The standard verifies that assertions are connected to the underlying asset, correctly formed, and free from tampering.

The pseudonymous co-founder of crypto casino Rollbit is the subject of an attempted doxxing by an online researcher who says the platform stole from customers, and that some of its games are rigged.

According to a 128-page dossier put together by X user “HalfRetired,” Rollbit co-founder “Lucky” is actually a British national called Daniel Robert Dixon.

The dossier specifically ties Lucky to Counter-Strike:Global Offensive (CSGO) video game skin-gambling scandals, and claims that his companies have refused valid withdrawal requests by some customers.

The research also alleges that Rollbit and its predecessor Interdax built their audiences by quietly paying crypto influencers BTC to shill the platforms through referral links, without disclosing those payments to followers.

It frames the practice as a repeat playbook, as though the same undisclosed arrangements that drove Interdax’s growth were carried over to Rollbit.

HalfRetired’s allegations rely on UK corporate filings, years-old CSGO community drama, and social media posts by aggrieved customers.

Protos hasn’t verified their accuracy and doesn’t endorse these allegations.

Who is Daniel Robert Dixon?

Dixon was a director of DAX Financial Technologies Ltd and International Digital Assets Exchange Ltd, a derivatives exchange known as Interdax. 

Interdax offered up to 100x leverage before it was dissolved in 2022. Dixon is listed as an Interdax co-founder.

Because Rollbit’s parent company is licensed in Curaçao, official UK registers cannot confirm that Dixon is Lucky, nor that he owns Rollbit.

HalfRetired’s claim rests on a screenshot of a CSGO Empire user called “Monarch” who is widely known in that community, and on other secondhand posts from social media.

Rollbit co-founder “Razer” has publicly denied any Dixon or CSGO Diamonds connection, a denial that HalfRetired calls dishonest. People have alleged that Dixon is Lucky since at least 2025.

Rollbit hasn’t publicly responded to HalfRetired’s dossier.

Read more: Crypto gambling livestreams to be banned from Twitch after $200K scam

Livestream rigging?

HalfRetired revived the 2016 CSGO Diamonds scandal, which saw streamer “m0E” accuse the site’s owner — who HalfRetired alleges is Dixon — of secretly feeding livestreamers advance dice roll outcomes. 

The dispute ended after CSGO developer Valve sent cease-and-desist letters.

Advertisement

After m0E publicly accused the site of predetermining outcomes for promoted players, its owner admitted in a post, “We made a mistake with m0E and decided to tell him some of his future rolls in an effort to make his stream more entertaining on our site.”

In July 2016, CSGO Diamonds went offline.

Withheld withdrawal requests?

HalfRetired also catalogs a pattern of user complaints. “Rov777,” for example, claims Rollbit froze a $250,000 balance in June 2026. 

Another, “anonadep,” said the platform withheld a withdrawal request that HalfRetired estimated at more than $29,000. 

Advertisement

HalfRetired argues that Rollbit cited a different justification each time for delays, such various regional restrictions, once certain users tried to cash out winning balances.

Selvlabs founder Foobar has separately alleged that Rollbit is “notorious for stealing people’s money” by “locking accounts” and “delaying payouts.”

‘Provably fair’

Rollbit also markets its in-house games as “provably fair,” but HalfRetired doubts that claim.

A 2023 analysis alleged that Rollbit’s then-current Plinko game changed the server seed for every bet.

Advertisement

Changing a server seed breaks the mathematical design that makes provably fair games trustworthy. 

In a standard setup, the operator publishes a cryptographic hash of a secret server seed before gameplay. The player supplies a client seed, and the result is derived from both.

Once the server seed is disclosed, the player can verify the commitment and reproduce the result, provided the protocol and implementation are sound.

Changing the server seed after new gameplay rounds removes that commitment.

Advertisement

HalfRetired argues that Rollbit previously let its house server choose when to serve a favorable seed. HalfRetired conceded the analysis didn’t establish that Rollbit was cheating currently, only doubting the fairness of its historical games. 

Rollbit has since said it moved several games to a verifiably random system requiring no revealed server seed. The older design at the center of unfairness allegations is no longer in use.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Advertisement