Bitcoin shattered $80,000 after a $148 billion US liquidity shock failed to break markets

Bitcoin climbed above $80,000 after a $148 billion US Treasury cash build failed to destabilize overnight funding markets.

The Treasury General Account rose by $148.003 billion through Sept. 16 to $991.708 billion, Federal Reserve data showed, as tax payments shifted cash into the government’s account at the central bank.

Deposits held by commercial banks at the Fed fell by $114.971 billion over the same period to $2.922 trillion, tightening the pool of reserves available to the financial system. The gap between the two moves shows the Treasury increase did not translate into a one-for-one reserve drain because other balance-sheet flows were also at work.

The transfer had been closely watched because large tax-date inflows into the Treasury can temporarily pull cash from private markets and make short-term funding more expensive. That risk took on added significance after the Fed raised its benchmark interest-rate range by 25 basis points to 3.75% to 4% on Sept. 16.

So far, the strain has remained contained.

The Secured Overnight Financing Rate, the main benchmark for borrowing cash against Treasury securities, printed at 3.85% on Sept. 17 across almost $3 trillion of transactions. That was five basis points below the Fed’s new 3.90% interest rate on reserve balances.