Bitcoin rose about 5.9% on Sept. 19, moving from around $76,000 to above $80,000 and touching $80,857 at the high. ABMedia, citing Decrypt, said the advance was driven mainly by forced liquidations of short positions rather than fresh buying entering the market.
From roughly $75,000 three days earlier to above $80,000 on Friday
ABMedia said Bitcoin’s low for the month came on Sept. 16 at about $75,590. The backdrop at the time was weakness across crypto-related assets after the CLARITY Act failed to pass a procedural vote in the Senate, falling short 49-50.
Bitcoin then traded sideways for two days before jumping on Sept. 19. The report put the one-day gain at 5.9%, with the price closing near $80,874. It was later quoted at around $80,900, still above the $80,000 mark. From the Sept. 16 low, that amounts to a gain of about 7.5%.
Most of the liquidations were shorts
According to figures cited by Decrypt and referenced by ABMedia, more than $445 million in short positions across the crypto market were liquidated. Bitcoin alone accounted for more than half of that total, at about $230 million.
The report also cited CoinGlass data showing about $529 million in total liquidations over 24 hours, with most of that coming from short positions.
ABMedia noted that those liquidation figures could only be traced at the reporting level for now. Chain News said it could not independently verify the underlying CoinGlass data because access to the raw data requires a paid API key. Price levels and percentage moves, however, were cross-checked against market quotes.
Why short covering can push prices higher
The report explained that forced closure of short positions is itself a form of buying. As prices rise and trigger liquidation thresholds for one batch of shorts, those involuntary buy orders can push the market higher again, setting off the next batch and creating a chain reaction.
ABMedia said that kind of move differs from a rally led by active buying because the underlying capital structure is not the same.
Fed projections, not just the rate hike, were the trigger cited in the report
ABMedia said the key repricing trigger was not the Federal Reserve’s 25-basis-point rate hike at its Sept. 16 meeting by itself, but the Summary of Economic Projections released at the same time. Under the implementation note, the federal funds target range was adjusted to 3.75% to 4.00% effective Sept. 17.
Based on the Fed’s published projections table, the median policy rate estimate was 4.1% for the end of 2026, 4.1% for the end of 2027, 3.9% for the end of 2028, and 3.2% over the longer run. Compared with the current midpoint of about 3.875%, the 4.1% median implies room for roughly one more 25-basis-point increase, with no change between the end of 2026 and the end of 2027.
ABMedia’s reading was that the hike itself was a tightening step, but the path laid out by officials pointed more to a pause after this move than to the start of a prolonged tightening cycle.