Bitcoin climbed above $87,000 on Monday, extending a rally that has forced out bearish traders and pulled fresh leveraged bets back into the market.
Bitcoin touched $87,000 on Coinbase and Binance in afternoon trading, its highest level since late January, after breaking through $82,000 earlier in the session. The CoinDesk Market Index, which tracks dozens of major tokens, rose 5.7 percent over 24 hours. Ether gained about 5 percent to $2,770, XRP jumped more than 9 percent to $1.54, and Solana rose 7 percent.
The breakout mattered because $82,000 had stopped the market before. An attempt to push through that level in May failed, and bitcoin slid below $60,000 in June. This time the move stuck. The price cleared $86,000, an eight-month high, before adding to gains through the US afternoon. Monday’s advance took the coin roughly 44 percent above where it ended June, close to what some analysts now call a full bull run.
Shorts get squeezed, leverage builds
The rally started with forced buying. Shorts made up 86 percent of liquidations over the past 24 hours and 96 percent in the most recent hour, according to CoinDesk data, meaning traders betting against the market were being closed out faster as the price rose. More than $750 million in positions were wiped out across roughly 136,000 traders over the day.
Fresh money is now chasing the move. Bitcoin futures open interest has climbed by roughly $2 billion since the breakout, a sign that leveraged traders are coming back. Analysts flagged that build-up as the main risk to the rally. When open interest rises this fast, a reversal tends to trigger liquidations of its own, and the October 10 episode of last year remains the cautionary example: roughly $19 billion in leveraged positions were wiped out in the largest liquidation cascade the market has seen.
“Bitcoin up 5% this morning due to short perpetual futures contracts being liquidated,” Jim Ferraioli, head of crypto research at Schwab, told CoinDesk.
“So far this rally is looking pretty healthy,” said Nick De Maere of market maker Wintermute, who listed three things that will decide whether it holds: ETF flows over the coming days, signs of excess in perpetual futures through inflated open interest or funding rates, and Friday’s options expiry.
The levels that matter
The next psychological target is $90,000. Analysts at BTIG wrote on Sunday that as long as $75,000 holds, bulls can target a push through $82,000 on the way to $90,000.
Bitcoin also reclaimed two markers it had lost since January. It moved back above the cost basis of US spot ETF holders, the average price paid by ETF buyers, and above its 50-week moving average, a long-term trend line that De Maere said acted as resistance during previous bear markets. Both reclaims matter to traders who watch where older holders sit on their positions.
| Level | Significance |
|---|---|
| $87,000 | Monday high on Coinbase and Binance, strongest since late January |
| $86,000 | Eight-month high hit during the session |
| $82,000 | Breakout level that capped the price in May |
| $90,000 | Next target flagged by BTIG and traders |
| $75,000 | Line BTIG says must hold for the bullish case |
Risk appetite spreads past bitcoin
Altcoins joined in, which Ferraioli read as a sign that risk appetite is broadening. Monero rose about 13 percent, extending a strong run for privacy coins, and NEAR jumped 23 percent on traffic tied to Zcash swaps. The real test, he said, is whether activity on smaller blockchains actually rises, rather than prices simply bouncing harder after being oversold.
Crypto-linked equities followed the move. Coinbase and Bullish, CoinDesk’s parent company, each rose about 5 percent, and Robinhood gained 4 percent. Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, is now positive for the year, up 5 percent, after buying 950 bitcoin for roughly $76 million last week. The company holds about 846,000 bitcoin, more than 4 percent of the 21 million supply cap.
Treasury buyers kept adding through the rally. Strive bought 1,355 bitcoin for $107.7 million between September 14 and 18 at an average of about $79,475 per coin, and Bitmine Immersion added 27,562 ether, taking its stack past 5.98 million ETH, close to 5 percent of Ethereum’s circulating supply. Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said institutions, which have underweighted crypto this year partly because AI stocks outperformed early on, should increase exposure in the final three months of 2026.
Macro tailwind behind the move
Falling crude prices helped. Brent slid for a fourth straight session, easing the inflation pressure that has kept the Federal Reserve hawkish, and traders positioned ahead of a summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping later this week. Equity futures rose alongside crypto, with AI-linked stocks leading gains. The correlation has worked in reverse for months, so the improvement is being read as a genuine shift in the macro backdrop rather than a crypto-specific event.
ETF demand is the other pillar. Fidelity’s FBTC led a $433 million day of inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs last week, and on-chain analysts had pointed to heavy resistance between $83,000 and $86,000, a zone that now sits behind the market. Whether those flows continue at these prices is the question De Maere’s checklist is designed to answer.
Friday’s options expiry adds a timing element. Large expiries often move spot prices as dealers hedge, and with open interest already elevated, the combination of a big expiry and leveraged positioning could produce sharp moves in either direction.
The quarter has been strong. Bitcoin is up about 44 percent since the end of June, close to what some analysts describe as a full bull run. But the leverage now piling into the market cuts both ways. Traders who remember October will be watching funding rates before they chase $90,000.