Bitcoin $87K rally flips from short squeeze to long-side risk

Bitcoin climbed to roughly $87,400 last week after prices cleared large short positions, moving liquidation exposure toward concentrated long holdings. Market data show weaker fresh buying in spot and ETF markets while some holders realized sizable gains.

CryptoQuant’s Bull Score rose to 90 out of 100 and sentiment measures reached their highest levels since July 2025. CryptoQuant estimates apparent spot demand contracted by about 170,000 BTC over the past 30 days. U.S. ETF daily inflows declined about 97% in the week ending Sept. 28, falling from roughly $1 billion to about $31 million.

Futures-demand growth cooled from a peak near 164,000 BTC on Sept. 14 to about 16,000 BTC, according to CryptoQuant. Short-term traders’ unrealized profit margin rose to about 33%, the highest since December 2024. CryptoQuant reported that holders realized profits on about 25,700 BTC on Sept. 22, the largest single-day total so far in 2026.

Derivatives account for most trading activity. The spot-to-futures volume ratio on Binance is near 0.12, indicating roughly nine out of 10 dollars of trading activity occurs in futures. Binance open interest fell to about $9.2 billion from $10.6 billion over a week. Coin-denominated open interest is down nearly 20% to its lowest level since March, according to on-chain analytics.

Alphractal’s analysis shows the recent advance cleared the largest short-liquidation pool of the past 12 months. The firm reports the largest remaining unliquidated clusters are concentrated on the long side. Joao Wedson, chief executive of Alphractal, noted the firm’s Whales vs. Retail Delta briefly pointed to increased whale bullishness but the shift did not persist; he said the indicator must turn positive and remain so to indicate larger holders are positioned for a continued rally.

Key technical levels include the 365-day moving average near $80,000, the 200-day moving average near $71,000 and a traders’ realized price around $67,000. Market participants are monitoring concentrated long positions, open interest and ETF flows for signs of further changes in supply and demand.