Standard Chartered Shock Has Bitcoin Retail Suddenly Eyeing $126,000

Bitcoin's 26% surge from $62,900 on August 16 to $79,500 five days later — a run that left the price near $77,000 on Saturday — has wiped out billions of dollars in short positions and pulled retail buyers back off the sidelines, even as Standard Chartered's global head of digital assets research now sees a risk that his $100,000 year-end forecast is too low.

"This wasn't an organic rally. It was a classic short squeeze," the trader MARMOT posted on Friday to 114,000 views as the run drew to a close. "$3.1 BILLION in shorts wiped out," the post read. "One of the biggest short liquidations I've seen." A squeeze feeds on itself: as prices rise, exchanges forcibly close leveraged bearish positions, and the automatic buy-backs add further upward pressure — the feedback loop that liquidation trackers tally in the billions during fast moves.

"And right now, retail is FOMO-ing in hard, convinced the bottom is in," MARMOT later posted to 82,000 followers, adding that "there are more than $12 BILLION in longs sitting right below us" and that "Market makers could be hunting these longs next." Those figures are MARMOT's own count, not an exchange disclosure.

'Retail Actually Has More Influence Over The Markets'

"I don't support zero DTE options. But with the rise of zero DTE options, retail actually has more influence over the markets than you would think," said Charan Dangeti, a content creator working with paper trading app GameStock, in an interview about the options market retail now reaches. Zero-DTE contracts expire on the same day they are traded, a format that has grown into a large share of daily S&P 500 options volume in recent years.

"we've always complained that, oh, you know, institutions control the markets. We can't do anything at end of day," said Dangeti, who posts market analysis to more than 226,000 followers and runs a free Discord community of over 33,000 people. He added: "I just don't think that's true anymore."

'My End Year Forecast Is Too Low'

"For the first time this year there is now a risk my end year forecast (of USD100k) is too low," wrote Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered's global head of digital assets research. Kendrick had cut that year-end call from $150,000 in February and now sees a retest of bitcoin's $126,000 record, with the recovery accelerating after October 6.

Derivatives and fund-flow data point to the same shift in positioning. "56% of $BTC options flow was blocks: $47.39M in call buys vs $13.54M in put buys," the flow tracker Bykaranteli posted on Friday, as SoSoValue counted $1.62 billion flowing into the US spot bitcoin funds over four sessions to August 21, reversing a week of net outflows. The US spot bitcoin ETFs, approved in January 2024, have made those daily creations and redemptions one of the market's most closely watched demand gauges. The biggest options print cut the other way: "a $1.67M block call sell at 70000 for 25SEP26."

"A week ago, we were stuck around $62K, and everyone was waiting for $45–50K to start buying," the trader Crypto Kit wrote on Friday evening. "Today $BTC is at $77K, and suddenly everyone is perfectly fine with that price too. FOMO everywhere."

'Pullback Is Very Much Needed'

"Everyone Calling for $100k Now!" wrote ABU CARTEL, who told 61,000 followers that "When we are Straight up for 3 days, 25%+, Everyone is now Calling for New ATH & $100k+" and that "Pullback is very much Needed, We Fully Rekt the Shorts." The stated range: "78900-86975 is my Short Target Range," with "Above 87k is $100k."

"#Bitcoin ripped from $64k to nearly $80k in 3 days on a weak treasury buyback signal + the biggest short squeeze in years," wrote David Goldstein, a trader posting as WagsCap, in a week when the squeeze had already pulled $100,000 calls out of Wall Street.

"$80k is the first real resistance, but most likely this leg tops out somewhere in the $85k-$90k zone before it fades back to $55-$65k or consolidates hard around $70-$75k," Goldstein wrote, arguing that "squeeze fuel is largely spent." The argument will play out in the same measures that framed the week — liquidation totals, block options flow and the daily ETF prints.

"I wouldn't jump in right now just because of FOMO," Crypto Kit wrote, because "what's stopping the market from pulling back 10% from here? Nothing." The advice to anyone reading a leaderboard instead of a plan: "If you didn't plan to buy before, or the price didn't look attractive to you a week ago, there's no reason to jump in with both feet now."

"The problem I see a little bit paper trading now, people take aggressive risk. But then they're scared to do that with the real money," said Dangeti, whose audience mostly learns on simulated money long before a live account opens.

Source: Forbes