Bitcoin Rallies Past $85,000 as Shorts Lose $647.9 Million; Oil Slips for Fourth Session

Bitcoin rallied to $85,194 on Monday morning — having earlier hit $84,984 — putting it 5.4% higher over the past 24 hours and well beyond the $82,284 level reached on Sept. 4. The move came as oil slid for a fourth consecutive session after President Donald Trump suggested that talks with Iran remained possible.

Short Liquidations Top $647.9 Million

Roughly $746 million in crypto positions were wiped out over the last 24 hours, with $647.9 million of that total coming from shorts, according to Coinglass. Liquidations are the forced closure of leveraged positions when a trader's collateral can no longer cover the bet, and a short requires buying the asset back at market prices. The pressure intensified in the hour between 08:30 and 09:30 UTC, when $159.9 million in positions disappeared from the market — about 95% of it from traders who had bet on prices falling. Bitcoin short positions alone lost $277.5 million, while Ether shorts lost $122.8 million.

Fresh Leverage Replaces Flushed-Out Bets

Even as the liquidations unfolded, traders continued to buy rather than exit the market. Total crypto open interest rose 7.59% to $156 billion, while 24-hour trading volume jumped 39% to $224 billion. Open interest — the total value of derivative contracts still open on exchanges — serves as a gauge of how much capital remains committed to leveraged trading. The figures indicate that as losing bearish bets are closed, fresh positions keep arriving — traders are effectively replacing the leverage being flushed out instead of moving to the sidelines.

The futures market reflects the same shift in tone. The taker long-short ratio, a measure of whether aggressive order flow is skewed toward buyers or sellers, now sits close to 53% on the bullish side, the first time in weeks that buyers have held the edge. Bitcoin futures positioning has also picked up, with total open interest moving above 700,000 BTC for the first time in several weeks.

Oil Slides as Trump Keeps Iran Talks Open

Crude fell for a fourth straight session on Monday after Trump suggested negotiations with Iran were still possible. Brent crude for November delivery dropped 2.6% to $101.17 a barrel by press time, while West Texas Intermediate for October delivery fell 2.5% to $97.78. Brent and WTI are the benchmark grades against which most global crude sales are priced.

Trump told Fox News that he would likely be willing to sit down with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during this week's UN General Assembly. Crude shipments out of the Middle East have so far continued without a major breakdown, even after Saudi Arabia closed its East-West pipeline following attacks. Whether that meeting takes place, and whether supply routes stay open, are the developments energy traders will be watching as the General Assembly week unfolds.

Equity Futures Rise as Yields Slip

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 450 points, or 0.9%. S&P 500 futures added 0.7%, while Nasdaq-100 futures climbed 1%.

The firm futures picture follows a mixed week for stocks: the Dow Jones fell 1.7% over the past week, its worst weekly performance since March, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.1% and the Nasdaq gained 0.7%.

Bond yields moved down along with crude. The 10-year Treasury yield fell more than 3 basis points to 4.957%, and the 30-year yield dropped a similar amount to 5.294%. Treasury yields serve as the reference point for borrowing costs across the economy, which is why their direction is watched closely alongside equity moves. Investors continue to grapple with stubborn inflation and expensive borrowing costs after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates last week for the first time in three years.

According to the report, Bitcoin is pushing higher as short positions are crushed, while cheaper oil and lower yields are giving stocks a lift.

Source: Cryptopolitan