Bitcoin liquidates $85M shorts as bull flag sparks $100K BTC price target

Bitcoin upside strength causes pain for shorters, but doubts remain over whether the BTC price rally can last much longer.

Bitcoin (BTC) traded above $70,000 on May 21 after relentless bidding produced snap BTC price upside.

Bitcoin buys fuel march past $69,000

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD attempting to hold its latest reclaimed ground around key psychological levels.

Bitcoin surprised into the previous daily close, with repeat lots of buy liquidity boosting the market to nearly $72,000.

In doing so, the largest cryptocurrency crushed short sellers, with $85 million in BTC shorts alone wiped in the 24 hours to the time of writing, per data from monitoring resource CoinGlass.

Commenting, statistician Willy Woo noted that bulls were tackling overhead resistance in place for a month or more.

“1 month of Bitcoin short position build up just got liquidated,” he told followers on X (formerly Twitter).

“One more layer to go in order to short squeeze past all time highs.”

One bold prediction even saw $100,000 as the outcome after a breakout completed on weekly timeframes. 

Popular trader Skew suggested that the United States’ spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) could have had a hand in the move, predicting “important days to come” in the run-up to the decision on the U.S. spot Ether (ETH) ETFs.

ETH/USD traded at near $3,700 on the day, up 18% in 24 hours and 25% over the week.

Trader: “Not the conditions” for sustained BTC price gains

Updating followers while eyeing the new demand, popular trader and commentator Credible Crypto nonetheless stuck to a conservative outlook.

Related: ETFs buy 3X new BTC supply — 5 Things to know in Bitcoin this week

BTC price action, he reiterated, was at “major resistance” and faced a likely failure to overcome it — at least for the time being.

“No change to the plan- we are at major resistance atm with perp premium positive after a month and a half and funding the highest its been since- I clearly said these are not the conditions in which a move to the highs is conducive to the next major leg up imo,” he wrote in part of an X discussion.

CoinGlass showed $70,630 as the area of thickest bid liquidity below spot price at the time of writing.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.