Bitcoin (BTC) neared $87,000 on Friday as BTC short liquidations topped $120 million over 24 hours.
Key points:
- Bitcoin broke through sell orders around $85,000, reaching its highest price since Sept. 23 at $86,857.
- CoinGlass’s heatmap showed a cluster of potential liquidations above $87,000 following the breakout.
- Glassnode analysis said that more robust Bitcoin ETF inflows would help confirm broader support for the BTC price uptrend.
Bitcoin buyers battle liquidity walls below $87,000
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD reaching $86,857 on Bitstamp before pulling back below $86,000.
BTC/USD four-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
The move, which marked Bitcoin’s highest since Sept. 23, followed fresh fluctuations in exchange order-book liquidity. A concentration of sell orders around $85,000 had kept price action rangebound through the week, but buyers broke through that barrier, per data from onchain analytics platform Glassnode.
“With reduced ask liquidity above, this should allow price to move up faster,” it wrote on X, adding that the remaining sell orders “seem to have been removed.”
BTC/USDT order-book heatmap (Binance). Source: Glassnode
Earlier in the week, Cointelegraph reported that more than $30 million in sell orders had appeared around $85,700. Data from CoinGlass showed a cluster of potential liquidations above $87,300 following the initial breakout, suggesting that liquidation exposure was concentrating at higher price levels.
BTC liquidation heatmap (all exchanges). Source: CoinGlass
BTC short liquidations over the 24 hours to the time of writing totaled $122 million, with the cross-crypto total at $210 million.
ETF inflows decline after 11-month record
The area around $86,000 remains significant, forming the aggregate breakeven zone for investors in the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Related: Bitcoin ETFs kick off ‘Uptober’ with $103M inflow
In the latest edition of its regular newsletter, The Week Onchain, Glassnode said a sustained breakout accompanied by higher trading volume and renewed ETF inflows would confirm broader support for Bitcoin’s uptrend.
Daily flows have cooled since Sept. 21, when the daily tally hit its highest in almost a year at $999 million.
“The funds are still buying, but at a small fraction of the pace of those two days. A return to inflows near that pace would be the clearest sign of renewed ETF demand,” it wrote.
US spot Bitcoin ETF netflows through Sept. 30. Source: Glassnode
On Oct. 1, US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows of $102.7 million, according to Farside Investors. The largest fund, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), attracted $195 million, with outflows from several other funds reducing the daily tally.