After briefly touching a high of $87,374, Bitcoin quickly retraced, with the market’s attention fixed on the key psychological threshold of $90,000. The core suspense at present is whether, as the price approaches this target, the potential short-squeeze liquidation risk will turn into fuel driving the rally or become a hidden danger triggering violent fluctuations. Although the price has not yet firmly established itself above $90,000, the massive leverage hanging overhead has injected extremely high sensitivity into the market, and any small price movement could trigger a chain reaction.
Bitcoin broke through the $87,000 mark on September 21. The four-hour chart on the Bitstamp platform showed that it touched a high of $87,374 that day, but the strength did not last, and it subsequently fell back to about $86,865, still about 3.5% away from the $90,000 target. This round of gains continued the trend since approaching a high of about $82,800 in May 2026. When it broke through the key resistance level of $84,000, it forced short sellers to close their positions, providing direct impetus for the price increase.
Data compiled by Woofun AI shows that the most recent price above $90,000 recorded by CoinGlass was $90,278, at which point the estimated cumulative short-squeeze liquidation leverage ratio was as high as $574.72 million. Within the narrow range of $87,660 to $90,278, about $330 million in liquidation risk was concentrated, accounting for 57% of the cumulative risk value, indicating an extremely high concentration of risk. The core of the forced liquidation mechanism is that when a short seller’s available margin is insufficient, the exchange automatically executes the liquidation, and the trader must buy in the futures market to close the position. If a large number of short positions are forcibly liquidated, concentrated buy orders will push up derivatives prices, and arbitrage traders will immediately step in, buying spot and selling futures to capture the price difference, transmitting buying pressure to the spot market. This self-reinforcing mechanism is known as a “short squeeze,” but the premise is that the price must first rise. It should be noted that $574.72 million represents the cumulative risk within the range, not the instantaneous liquidation volume at a single price level.
Bitcoin’s four-hour RSI is currently about 87, far above the overbought threshold of 70. A high RSI indicates that upward price pressure is already extremely great, and the risk of profit-taking increases accordingly. If Bitcoin quickly breaks through $90,000, it may trigger two effects at the same time: on the one hand, short sellers are forced to close positions, accelerating the price increase; on the other hand, once buying weakens, the market is prone to profit-taking. The liquidation map explains why Bitcoin can rapidly approach $90,000, but it cannot reveal who will continue buying after positions are closed. Spot market demand is the ultimate determining factor. If demand is strong, the market can absorb profit-taking sell orders and form new support above $90,000; if demand weakens, the price may briefly break through and then fall back. This is another moment, after the 2021 bull market, when the market faces the resonance of high leverage and high valuations. A pure leverage-driven rise lacking spot absorption is often difficult to sustain.
MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Strive (ASST) together spent $183 million to buy Bitcoin last week. MicroStrategy purchased 950 BTC at an average price of $79,670 per coin between September 14 and 20, spending a total of $75.7 million, with total holdings rebounding to 846,000 coins and cumulative total cost reaching $63.8 billion. Strive purchased 1,355 BTC at an average price of $79,475 per coin between September 14 and 18, spending $107.7 million, with total holdings reaching 26,355 coins, while cash and equivalents rose to $229.6 million over the same period.
