Bitcoin Short Squeeze Setup Points to $85K-$88K Rally

Lower timeframes printing higher lows and higher highs is evidence that buyers are still engaged in the market.

On Tuesday, Bitcoin (BTC) hit $76,000 before falling back to around $74,000, and analyst Michaël van de Poppe thinks the market is getting ready for something bigger.

He argued in a post on X on Wednesday that low funding rates and rising open interest at resistance are the classic signs of a short squeeze, which could send BTC all the way up to $85,000–$88,000.

Overleveraged Shorts and a Third Attempt

Van de Poppe built his argument on derivatives data, not the price chart alone.

“The funding rate is negative,” he wrote. “This means people are overleveraged short while we’re attacking resistance.”

When funding goes negative, short traders are paying long traders to hold their positions open, which is a sign that the bearish trade has gotten crowded.

On top of that, he noted open interest has climbed sharply over the past few days, meaning more capital has quietly stacked up on the short side right where BTC has been rejected before.

That, he argued, is a trap waiting to be sprung, and if the cryptocurrency pushes through $75,000, those short sellers have to buy back their positions to stop the bleeding, which adds fuel to the move rather than dampening it.

He acknowledged the first two tests of this level worked out for bears, with traders happy to sell into strength there. However, the third test is different:

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“There’s significantly greater potential for the markets to break higher now vs. the previous test, and if they do, it’s very likely that $85-$88K is the next resistance zone to be tested.”

Van de Poppe also pushed back on the “shooting star” candle that printed on the daily chart after the $76,000 rejection. While a lot of traders read the pattern as a bearish warning, the market watcher did not. According to him, lower timeframes are printing higher lows and higher highs, which tells him buyers are still engaged. As such, his floor is $72,000, and above that, he wants to be long, not short.

Trader George, posting around the same time, was less convinced. He stated that he would be staying in longs for now, but argued that no real breakout will happen until there’s a weekly close above $74,000.

“We’ve traded above on the LTF’s but we haven’t seen continuation or any HTF close above that level,” he explained.

Without that, he says, this could just be another liquidity grab, a fake pump above the highs before the range reasserts itself. The weekly close, he wrote, is going to matter.

Consolidation Marked By Macro Tailwinds

Bitcoin has been wrestling with $75,000 for weeks. The catalyst for this latest run came on April 14, when US Vice President JD Vance said progress had been made in negotiations with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. As CryptoPotato reported, crypto markets added around $100 billion in total capitalization within a single session.

The move extended to roughly $76,000 on Tuesday before reversing, and the asset has since been grinding to hold $74,000.