Short squeeze

Goldman Sachs

2026-10-22 12:19:32

Goldman Sachs says hedge fund short bets are nearing a five-year extreme

Global hedge funds have stepped up short positioning since October, pushing bearish bets close to their highest level in five years, according to Goldman Sachs prime brokerage data. The bank said the ratio of short trades to long buys has reached roughly 5 to 1, a sign that downside positioning has become heavily crowded. Goldman also said its books show global equity short leverage has climbed to the 99th percentile of the past five years. That leaves the market exposed if sentiment turns and a rebound catalyst emerges, with crowded shorts at risk of a sharp squeeze. At the same time, while overall leverage has recovered, net leverage among fundamental long-short funds — a measure of how much long exposure exceeds short exposure — has fallen to its lowest level in nearly three years. The figures point to a market where gross risk has risen, but directional conviction on the long side has weakened.

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Bitcoin

2026-10-18 15:03:23

Trader Killa says Bitcoin has likely finished its downside sweep, with $79,800 and $83,600 now in focus

Bitcoin may be nearing the end of a downside liquidity sweep, according to trader Killa, who reviewed the asset’s weekly structure on Oct. 18. He said BTC had previously dropped from $87,000 into the $80,000 area before rebounding 50%, and that after this week’s open, Monday’s push higher failed to hold before price moved lower and swept the prior week’s low near $80,000. In Killa’s view, the market has mainly been "hunting" longs so far, which could leave room for a shift toward squeezing shorts next week. For the near term, he said traders should watch whether Bitcoin revisits this week’s low at $79,800. If that level is swept again, he sees it as a potential long setup. He also outlined a clear decision zone at $83,600. If BTC cannot break through that area, the market would likely remain stuck in a capitulation phase within a range. If price reclaims it, the move could open the way for an upside breakout. Killa added that even in the most bearish outcome for bulls, BTC may only deviate lower into the $76,000-$78,000 range, and he does not expect an extreme sweep to $74,000.

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BAT

2026-10-14 06:15:00

BAT jumps as shorts crowd in, but the rally still hinges on product delivery

Basic Attention Token, or BAT, has staged one of the sharper countertrend moves in the crypto market this month, climbing from $0.078 on Sept. 13 to $0.205 on Oct. 13 while Bitcoin slipped 1% and total market capitalization fell 1.5%. The move accelerated in the second week of October, with BAT rising 34% on Oct. 9, perpetual futures open interest surging 60% on Oct. 10, and price adding another 10% within a single hour on Oct. 13. What stands out is the structure behind the rally. BAT kept rising even as perpetual funding rates stayed negative, a sign that short positions remained crowded and were paying longs. That setup points to a classic short squeeze. At the same time, later-stage trading showed weaker spot participation, lower volume after Oct. 12, and an RSI reading of 87.91, suggesting leverage was taking over and the market had become heavily overbought. The narrative backdrop comes from Brave’s BAT Roadmap 4.0, released on July 9, which recast BAT as payment infrastructure for the AI era. The roadmap includes x402 and Machine Payments Protocol support for AI agent micropayments, BravePay for privacy-focused stablecoin payments, a Brave Rewards Card for offline spending and BAT rewards, and a Creator Contribution Protocol for automated compensation tied to AI use of creator content. Still, much of that remains at the roadmap stage, leaving Q4 product execution as the main test for whether BAT’s rebound can move beyond a squeeze-driven rally.

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BAT

2026-10-14 02:31:04

BAT jumps 95% in a week while funding stays negative, raising the question of whether this is a real comeback

Basic Attention Token, or BAT, has staged one of the sharper moves among older crypto assets in October, climbing from $0.078 on Sept. 13 to $0.205 on Oct. 13, a gain of more than 124% over the month. The steepest part of the move came in the final week, with a 34% daily jump on Oct. 9, a 60% surge in perpetual futures open interest on Oct. 10, and another 10% rise within a single hour on Oct. 13. What stands out is that the rally unfolded while BTC fell 1% and total crypto market capitalization slipped 1.5%, making BAT an outlier. The market structure is unusual. BAT’s perpetual funding rate remained negative even as price climbed, pointing to crowded short positioning rather than overheated longs. That setup can fuel a squeeze if rising prices force short sellers to cover, adding more buy pressure. At the same time, open interest expanded quickly, volume later cooled, and RSI reached 87.91, leaving room for a very different reading: leverage may be taking over as spot demand fades. The narrative behind the move comes from Brave’s BAT Roadmap 4.0, released on July 9, which reframed BAT as payment infrastructure for the AI era. The roadmap includes support for x402 and Machine Payments Protocol, BravePay, a Brave Rewards Card, and a creator compensation mechanism tied to AI usage. Still, much of that remains at the roadmap stage, leaving the market to decide whether BAT is being repriced on future utility or simply caught in a squeeze.

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Robinhood

2026-09-02 17:14:10

FAMI and JINQIAN frenzy on Robinhood chain unraveled as a ticker-copy token trade

A fast-moving trade around FAMI and JINQIAN on Sept. 2 pushed a meme-style narrative from crypto into U.S. equities, sending a token called JINQIAN above a $70 million market cap within an hour and lifting a separate on-chain token named FAMI to roughly $100 million at its peak. At the same time, Nasdaq-listed Farmmi Inc., which trades under the ticker FAMI, surged more than 300% intraday and briefly traded near $0.4 as volume expanded into the hundreds of millions of shares. The setup drew attention because it appeared to match a plan floated two days earlier by crypto trader Rune, who said he had bought 37.4% of a small-cap Nasdaq company in an OTC deal and intended to tokenize the stock on Robinhood Chain, pair it with a meme coin, and force a short squeeze. But Rune later said the token launch was not his. He said the acquisition statement had been written with Claude and posted by him, while another person used the idea to issue tokens and build liquidity pools. On-chain records cited in the source show the FAMI token was deployed on Sept. 1 and structured to mirror Rune’s numbers, including a 37,430,000 supply and an initial allocation close to the 37.4% figure he had mentioned. The larger problem, though, is that Robinhood recognizes only official stock-token contract addresses, and the platform’s asset list does not include FAMI. That means the token that rallied on-chain was not an official Farmmi stock token and had no direct claim on the listed shares.

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Dogecoin

2026-09-22 04:33:11

Dogecoin jumps more than 15% as short squeeze fades and bitcoin holds above $85,600

Dogecoin led major crypto gains in Tuesday Asian trading, rising more than 15% to just above $0.10, while bitcoin held above $85,600 after climbing about 5% over the past 24 hours. The move came after a heavy round of liquidations across the crypto market. CoinGlass data cited by CoinDesk showed that more than $1 billion in positions were wiped out over the past day, including $844 million in short bets, or 82% of the total, with roughly 135,000 traders forced out. Bitcoin made up about $608 million of those liquidations and ether accounted for $181 million. The largest single liquidation was a nearly $21 million bitcoin position on Hyperliquid. XRP rose 7% to nearly $1.52, SOL added 5% to just under $117, ether gained 3% to nearly $2,740, and BNB and TRX each rose between 1% and 2%. ZEC was the only large token in the red, falling 4% to just above $1,450. CoinDesk said liquidation activity cooled sharply over the last hour, dropping to less than $11 million from more than $300 million an hour at the peak of Monday’s move. That leaves any next leg higher more dependent on fresh buying than on forced short covering. Outside crypto, Asian equities also advanced as AI enthusiasm lifted chipmakers, with Meta’s Muse app gaining traction and AMD briefly topping a $1 trillion market value.

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Bitcoin

2026-09-21 21:49:47

Bitcoin hits $87,300 after clearing $82,000 as short squeeze builds, leverage risk rises

Bitcoin climbed as high as $87,300 after breaking above the key $82,000 resistance level, triggering roughly $750 million in liquidations of bearish crypto derivatives positions. Buying tied to short covering added fuel to the move. Since the breakout, open interest in Bitcoin derivatives has increased by about $2 billion, a sign that leverage is returning quickly. Nansen analyst Nicolai Sondergaard said price has turned bullish faster than positioning has adjusted. He also pointed to $87,000 as the next key level, followed by $90,000 and around $92,000. Wintermute trader Jasper De Maere said Bitcoin could test $90,000 as well, though he cautioned that a break above the 50-week moving average is only a constructive signal and that sharp short-term swings remain possible. Spot Bitcoin ETF flows in the U.S. are also back in focus. After combined outflows of $746 million on Tuesday and Wednesday, tied in the report to the stalled CLARITY Act and a Federal Reserve rate hike, the products posted inflows of $160 million on Thursday and $433 million on Friday. The report said the average cost basis for U.S. BTC ETF holders is about $82,200, putting investors back in profit as Bitcoin moved above that level. Analysts are now watching whether spot demand can keep pace with rising derivatives leverage.

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Hyperliquid

2026-09-19 10:35:31

Hyperliquid whale closes XRP short, buys back 450,000 XRP at $1.44

On-chain data shows that a large trader on Hyperliquid closed a sizable XRP short position by buying back 450,000 XRP at $1.44. The move came as XRP turned a key resistance level into support. Hyperliquid is a decentralized derivatives trading platform. The report was cited by Techub News and attributed to U.Today. No additional trade details were disclosed in the source, including the size of the position before the buyback or the trader’s remaining exposure after the close. The update focused on the timing of the move and the price level at which the repurchase took place, with the transaction occurring during a period when XRP was holding above what the source described as a key chart level.

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