Bitcoin traded at $71,556 on Thursday, up 3.26% on the day and moving within a $68,858–$72,408 band, as bulls attempt to break the bearish trend for the first time in months. Sentiment across the market has clearly shifted, but traders on prediction markets do not appear convinced just yet.

The move extends Bitcoin's sharpest rally in five months. Wednesday's performance was the strongest one-day jump since March 4 and lifted the price to its highest level since June 1, building on an 8.7% surge.

Prediction markets turn crowd bets into live odds, and they have grown from a niche best known for political and sports betting — Polymarket drew mainstream attention with its 2024 U.S. election contracts — into a real-time gauge of crypto sentiment. On Myriad — a market run by Decrypt's parent company Dastan — traders were leaning roughly 70% toward a dump to $55,000 just days ago. By Wednesday afternoon, the odds had collapsed to a near coin flip: about 52% on the bullish $84K side and 48% on the bearish $55K side.

The skepticism is not uniform, and the odds vary across markets. Polymarket's flagship 2026 price market was pricing a 56% chance that $BTC touched $55,000 before year-end and just 51% odds of a run to $75,000 as of last week. On Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated exchange, traders gave Bitcoin only a 54% shot at clearing $67,500 in August and 31% at $70,000 — both thresholds the rally blew through on Wednesday. A separate Polymarket contract put $BTC above $75,000 for August at 47% on roughly $12 million in volume.

The near-term markets got squeezed while the year-end ones barely moved; longer-dated contracts price in months of possible outcomes, so a two-day rally shifts them less. Prediction markets have been setting volume records as more traders hedge real positions with them, which makes the Myriad flip less a forecast than a recap of who got caught blindsided.

The next line in the sand for Bitcoin traders sits at $70,284, the lower edge of a resistance band on Bitcoin's chart. A daily close above it opens room toward $73,245, while losing $68,000 would drag Bitcoin back inside the range that has trapped it since June — the same compressive wedge that preceded crashes in October 2025 and January 2026.

Myriad's market does not expire on a calendar. It resolves the moment Binance's $BTC/USDT spot price touches either $84,000 or $55,000. Live odds on Myriad currently place a 52% chance on a bullish outcome, meaning that despite Bitcoin's impressive two-day run, traders appear — at best — cautiously optimistic.

Source: Decrypt