Bitcoin clears $86,000 after more than $1B in shorts are liquidated

Bitcoin climbed as high as $87,363 over the past 24 hours, its strongest level since January, before easing to $85,824 at press time. The move took Bitcoin above $86,000, a zone that had repeatedly capped rallies and attracted short positions over several months. Glassnode said Bitcoin reclaimed all of its major long-term moving averages after spending about 300 days below them. The firm said Bitcoin was also trading above its True Market Mean and short-term holder cost basis, which it uses to distinguish sustained bullish regimes from weaker market structures. Bitview data showed that more than 1 million BTC, worth over $92 billion, moved during the past week. The firm said that was Bitcoin's highest transaction volume in four years and exceeded activity recorded around its October 2025 peak. CoinGlass data showed that more than $1 billion in short positions were liquidated during the breakout. Alphractal Chief Executive Joao Wedson said the rally reached the largest short-liquidation zone built over the past year. The move followed an earlier liquidation of leveraged long positions during Bitcoin's decline, completing a broader reset in derivatives positioning. Alphractal estimated that longs represented about 71% of remaining unliquidated positions, compared with 29% for shorts, one of the widest gaps since Bitcoin's October 2025 record high. Glassnode said long leverage was gradually returning in the options market as Bitcoin traded around $86,000, while open-interest put-call ratios moved higher. The firm said positioning remained well below the speculative extremes seen near Bitcoin's previous peak and that perpetual-futures funding was still below neutral. Santiment said aggregate crypto open interest rose 7.6% to about $156 billion while bearish positions were being liquidated, and trading volume climbed 39%. Santiment also said bullish discussion around Bitcoin and the broader crypto market reached its strongest level since 2024, while the Fear and Greed Index approached extreme greed. Deribit data showed about $2.7 billion of Bitcoin open interest at each of the $90,000 and $95,000 strikes and roughly $2.3 billion at $100,000, for about $7.7 billion across those levels. Strike-level open interest includes buyers and sellers, so the figures alone do not indicate a directional bet. Bitcoin needed to gain less than 5% from its press-time price to reach $90,000, making that strike the market's immediate reference point. The next move toward $90,000 may depend more on new buying because much of the short-covering demand that helped drive the move through $86,000 has already been used. A sustained advance would also need recently rebuilt long exposure to withstand a pullback.