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On August 19, Bitcoin shorts liquidated $1.37 billion in a single day. What does that mean? It's almost double the previous record set in July 2021 ($757 million). Two days later, on August 21, another $739 million was added. Shorts lost over $2.1 billion in two days. 184,821 people were liquidated. Within the squeeze window, 85% of liquidations were shorts — the largest single-day short squeeze since Glassnode started tracking in 2019. This is not a rally; this is a "textbook short squeeze." But what's really interesting is not how many shorts died — but how they died. Bitcoin surged from $62,000 to over $80,000. Normally, with such a price spike, futures open interest should rise — longs adding positions chasing the rally. But this time it was different. BTC-denominated futures open interest actually dropped 11%, from 353,500 BTC before the rebound to 312,600 BTC. By August 25, it fell further to 587,600 BTC, a five-month low. Funding rates returned to neutral. Got it? This wasn’t longs aggressively adding positions — it was shorts being forced to surrender. Vetle Lunde, head of research at K33, bluntly stated in his report "Altitude sickness can wait": historic short squeezes often occur during Bitcoin’s bottoming phase — when bearish positions are overcrowded, short squeezes act as catalysts for trend reversals. Shorts have been thoroughly cleaned out. Now the question is — who will go long? Two signals are conflicting: Signal one: Institutions are entering. The US spot Bitcoin ETF saw a net inflow of $1.92 billion last week, the largest single-week inflow since October 2025. Total inflows since August reached $2.72 billion. Five consecutive trading days of net inflows, with no outflows. Signal two: Retail leverage is retreating. Futures open interest dropped to a five-month low. Perpetual contract funding rates remain below 10%, with long positions only moderate. Spot prices are rising, but leverage is not following. This is a classic "spot-driven rebound" — institutions are buying spot, but retail is hesitant to leverage up. A bigger variable comes the day after tomorrow. On August 28 (Friday), Deribit will see about $6.44 billion in Bitcoin options expire. Call options are heavily concentrated at $75,000 and $80,000 strike prices. But the biggest pain point is at $68,000. In plain language: Those who bought $80,000 call options are desperately trying to push the price up. Market makers, to avoid losses, are desperately trying to push the price down. This tug-of-war will be decided on Friday. $2.1 billion in short corpses have paved the way to $80,000. But how far this path goes — depends not on how much more shorts can lose, but on how much longs are willing to buy. ETFs are buying, but is it enough to absorb the selling pressure at the top? After options expiry, when market makers unwind their hedges, where will the price go? K33 says the technical signal this time — reclaiming the 50-day, 100-day, 200-day, and 200-week moving averages within 4 days — has only happened three times historically: October 2015, April 2020, and October 2023. Each time marked the start of a bull market. But Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan also cautions: as the global financial system is increasingly used as a geopolitical tool, a neutral monetary network not tied to any single country will become increasingly valuable. All true. But bull markets aren’t built on short corpses — they’re built on real money buying in. Shorts are all dead. Next, it’s up to the longs. $BTC $ETH $SOL #BTC冲高回落，期权到期放大关口博弈