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The Treasury's "no rules" approach and Besent's trump card: a cat-and-mouse game about expectations Just two weeks after the quarterly refinancing meeting, the Treasury suddenly and "no rules" announced doubling the scale of long-term bond buybacks. What happened to the previously promised "regularity and predictability"? Why the urgency? Because Besent is really anxious. The 30-year US Treasury yield once surged to 5.3%, the highest since 2007. The 10-year yield hovered above 4.7% at a high level. What does this mean? The total US debt just surpassed $40 trillion. Every additional basis point means billions in annual interest expenses. It's a burning issue. So Besent revealed his trump card—the $950 billion TGA account. What is the TGA? It's the US government's "checking account" at the Federal Reserve, a cash reserve of real money. During Biden's term, it was only between $550 billion and $600 billion, but Besent immediately piled it up to $950 billion. Why accumulate so much? Not for show, but to fight a battle—to suppress long-term interest rates. Besent calls this the "Treasury version of a twist operation" (Treasury Twist). But Bloomberg macro strategist Simon White hits the nail on the head: using the TGA to buy long bonds is essentially no longer a twist operation but a net liquidity injection. What's the difference? A twist operation sells short-term and buys long-term bonds, moving money from one pocket to another without changing total liquidity. But TGA bond purchases inject real cash from the Treasury into the market, akin to QE. The question is—does the market believe it? On the day the news broke, the 10-year Treasury yield briefly dipped below 4.7%, hitting a low of 4.68%. Then what? It rebounded. The entire fluctuation was just a few basis points. The market is telling Besent: "I know you have money, but I don't believe you can change the trend." Why the disbelief? First, $950 billion is not $950 billion of idle cash. The Treasury has daily obligations like payroll, defense contracts, and maturing bonds. The actual available amount is probably only $100 billion to $200 billion. This amount is a drop in the bucket in the $40 trillion US debt market. Second, you just raised the Q3 refinancing limit 16 days ago. Now you suddenly say you want to expand buybacks. The chaotic communication rhythm itself kills confidence. Third, Castle Securities directly labels this as "financial repression." Forcibly suppressing interest rates weakens the attractiveness of dollar assets, pushes up import prices, and ultimately backfires on the dollar. But the crypto market didn't wait for the Treasury to finish speaking. Bitcoin surged over 20% in three days, hitting $80,000, the largest gain since 2023. Ethereum broke through $2,500, rising over 32% since the announcement. Shorts were liquidated for $7.2 billion. Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw weekly inflows of $1.92 billion, a 10-month high. Why did Bitcoin and gold rise, but not US Treasuries? Because smart money read the subtext— When the Treasury can break the rules to suppress interest rates, the dollar's credit premium is damaged. Besent says, "We haven't bought a single bond yet." But the market has already voted with its feet. The debt ceiling crisis is earliest next winter. This means the Treasury has ample ammunition to play this game for the next year and a half. Every "no rules" surprise, every deviation from the "regularity and predictability" principle, tells the world one thing: The dollar is no longer the "rule maker" but the "rule breaker." And Bitcoin—was born to fight this. $BTC $ETH $XAU #财政部拟动用TGA，长债回购能否治本？