Bitcoin spent Monday looking like a breakout and smelling like a squeeze. The world’s largest cryptocurrency pushed through $85,000—levels not seen since January—after a violent unwind of leveraged shorts turned forced buying into the market’s primary accelerant.
CryptoSlate’s market tape put BTC more than 5% higher over 24 hours near $85,193 at the peak of the move, extending a roughly 29% climb across about five weeks. The advance did not arrive as quiet accumulation. It arrived as liquidations.
The squeeze math
CoinGlass figures circulating with the move showed roughly $750.5 million in leveraged crypto positions liquidated over 24 hours, with more than $648 million—about 86%—coming from shorts. Around 137,000 traders got hit. Bitcoin alone accounted for roughly $360 million of those liquidations; ether contributed nearly $171 million. The single largest wipeout flagged in the same dataset was an $11.29 million BTC-USDT long/short casualty on Binance.
Derivatives aggression matched the pain. CryptoQuant data highlighted net taker volume on Binance leaping from about $11 million to $618 million within an hour as European hours opened—a burst of market-buy imbalance consistent with shorts covering into strength rather than a leisurely ETF bid.
Technical trophies, thin on-chain applause
Chart watchers got the souvenirs they wanted. Bitcoin closed above its 50-week moving average last week for the first time since November 2025, ending a 45-week stretch below a level Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn has described as historically useful confirmation that a bear-market low is already behind the market. CryptoQuant’s Ki Young Ju separately flagged the reclaim of the 365-day moving average near $83,000 as a level that can pull sidelined momentum and institutional money back in.
On-chain activity was less celebratory. Santiment noted that new and active addresses stayed near median levels even as price broke higher, with social heat and large transfers elevated but not at two-month extremes. August’s smaller percentage rally actually produced more wallet creation than the latest breakout session. Derivatives open interest, meanwhile, jumped and stayed elevated—reinforcing the gap between leveraged conviction and network foot traffic.
The spot-demand caveat
Separate Monday coverage underlined a second caution: U.S. spot demand gauges such as Cryptoquant’s Coinbase Premium Index were not flashing a clean institutional stampede even as price printed eight-month highs. Forced buying can clear resistance; it cannot permanently replace fresh capital once the short base is gone. Bitcoin open interest near $28.8 billion—close to May records—also means the same leverage that turbocharged the rally can reverse into long liquidations if momentum fails.
Macro helpers were real enough for risk assets. Cooling oil prices and chatter around diplomatic progress in the Middle East improved the weekend-to-Monday risk tone, giving the squeeze a friendlier backdrop than a pure positioning accident.
What “bull market” still has to prove
Analysts floating early bull-market language are hanging that claim on moving-average reclaimations and ETF cost-basis proximity near the mid-$85,000s—not on a finished spot-demand regime. Holding $85,000 is less about weekend leverage and more about whether the next bid is voluntary.
For now, Monday’s message is simpler: bears who leaned into resistance got run over, taker volume went vertical, and Bitcoin owns the headline number again. The harder question—whether this is a durable regime change or a beautifully documented short squeeze—gets answered by spot flows, not by liquidation heatmaps.
Traders staring at the next few sessions should separate trophy levels from durable demand. Reclaiming long-watched moving averages feels historic until the bid quality shows up in spot premiums and quieter open interest. Monday proved shorts can still fund a moonshot. It did not yet prove who pays to keep Bitcoin above $85,000 once the forced buyers are done.
Source: CryptoSlate