Pantera Capital founder Dan Morehead said the US Treasury’s expanded bond buyback plan backfired, and that bitcoin’s 26% August rally was a direct result.
Speaking on Bloomberg Crypto, Morehead argued investors saw through Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s move almost immediately.
The buyback that backfired
On August 19, Bessent doubled the Treasury’s bond buybacks in an effort to ease borrowing costs. The program lets the government repurchase its own debt to influence bond yields, and the cap rose to at least $4 billion per operation.
Morehead said the increase looked tiny against the $2 trillion in bonds the Treasury must sell every year.
Rather than calming markets, highlighting the gap only exposed the depth of the debt problem and the broader trend of dollar devaluation.
Morehead told Bloomberg:
“It backfired because everyone could see they are off by three orders of magnitude.”
Bitcoin’s best August since 2021
Bitcoin climbed 26% in August, its strongest month since November 2025.
It marked the first net positive August since 2021, briefly topping $81,000.
BTC traded near $77,258 at press time.
Morehead framed crypto as a macro trade that benefits whenever governments keep expanding debt.
He pointed to Pantera’s call that bitcoin would peak at $117,542 on August 10, 2025—a forecast that held.
Fed pushback at Jackson Hole
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh struck a different tone at the Jackson Hole symposium.
He argued stronger growth could lift rates and reduce the appeal of yield-free assets like bitcoin.
Both gold and bitcoin retreated after the speech, giving Morehead’s bullish debt thesis its clearest pushback yet.
Four-year cycle still intact
Morehead said bitcoin peaking on the exact day Pantera called years earlier means the current pullback fits the same script.
The pattern has held for the 13 years his fund has tracked it, he added.
He expects a new upswing to begin near the end of this year, followed by another two- to three-year run based on the same four-year cycle model tied to halving epochs.
