From September 21 to 22, Bitcoin staged a long-awaited rapid surge.

BTC first broke through the $82,000 to $83,000 range that had repeatedly capped prices, then quickly climbed above $84,000, and as the rally continued, further broke through $85,000. By the morning of September 22, Bitcoin had briefly broken through $87,000, with a 24-hour gain of more than 7%.

This also means that if one merely explains this rally as "BTC breaking through $84,000," it is already somewhat lagging.

The question truly worth explaining has become: why did BTC not quickly pull back after breaking through key resistance, but instead accelerate all the way from $82,000 to $87,000?

The answer is not a single piece of good news.

Looking at the past few trading days together, this rally actually went through a fairly typical three-stage process: improvement in macroeconomic expectations → return of spot funds → large-scale short squeeze triggered after breaking through key price levels.

And in the latter half of the rally, the third force began to take an increasingly important position.

The Federal Reserve raised rates, yet it became the first catalyst for the rally

The first layer of change came from the macro market.

The Federal Reserve had previously raised rates by 25 basis points, but the subsequent rate path was not as hawkish as the market had feared. CryptoTicker believes this instead drove risk assets higher, and Bitcoin strengthened accordingly; at that time, more than $445 million in crypto shorts had already been liquidated, including over $230 million in Bitcoin shorts.

The most important thing here is not "why rate hikes were actually bullish for Bitcoin," but the expectation gap.

What the market trades is never just the rate hike itself, but "whether actual policy is more hawkish or more dovish than previously priced in."

When investors had already prepared for a more aggressive tightening path, and the policy signal ultimately released was not that hawkish, risk appetite was instead restored.

Bitcoin thus returned above $80,000. But macro can only explain why buying began to recover. It cannot explain why BTC was then able to pass through $82,000, $84,000, and even $87,000 within hours.

What truly caused the market to "accelerate upward" was the derivatives market.

$84,000 was only the first liquidation zone

Before this rally occurred, the area around $84,000 to $85,000 was already a densely observed short liquidation zone in the market.

Derivatives analysis on September 18 showed that when BTC was still trading near $78,300, there was an obvious short liquidation band at $84,000 to $85,000, while $82,300 was an important upper edge of the previous 30-day range.

Thus, when BTC broke above $82,000, a typical short squeeze began to occur: price rises → shorts approach liquidation line → forced buying to close positions → BTC continues to rise → more shorts are liquidated.

This is also why the market did not slowly rise from $82,000 to $84,000, but instead accelerated rapidly after the breakout.

When BTC initially broke above $84,000, TECHi counted about $252 million in short positions liquidated within a short period. But looking back now, $84,000 clearly did not become the end of this squeeze.

As BTC continued to break above $85,000, the scale of liquidations expanded further. The Block, citing CoinGlass data, said that as of its September 21 report, more than $750 million in positions across the market had been liquidated in the past 24 hours, of which $648.3 million were short positions. BTC then continued to break through $87,000.

This means that one of the most noteworthy features of this rally is actually: the short squeeze did not happen all at once, but continuously reinforced itself after the price broke through different resistance levels.

Those who had originally shorted at $84,000 were liquidated, and the price continued upward; shorts at higher levels then entered the danger zone and became the next batch of forced buyers.

This is also an important reason why BTC rapidly evolved from a single "breakout" into a vertical surge in a short period of time.

But this time, it was not just shorts buying BTC up on their own

The problem is that if the rise comes entirely from a short squeeze, then the rally naturally has a flaw:

Shorts will eventually be wiped out. Every short liquidated is equivalent to consuming one future forced buyer.

Therefore, to judge whether this rally is merely a violent position squeeze or could evolve into a more sustained advance, the most important thing is still to see whether real spot funds are following through.

At present, there are at least some signs that the answer is yes.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a combined net inflow of about $592.5 million on the previous Thursday and Friday. Of that, single-day inflows on September 18 reached $433 million, with Fidelity FBTC seeing $310.7 million in inflows and BlackRock IBIT seeing $108.4 million.

CryptoTicker also pointed out that funding rates remained relatively subdued at the time and did not show obvious leverage overheating alongside the price rise, and therefore believed this rally was not driven purely by the derivatives market.

There is another change especially worth noting.

This BTC rally has reclaimed the average cost area of around $82,000 previously held by U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF investors. This means that some ETF holders who had previously been underwater have returned to profit.

In other words, starting from the breakout above $82,000, this rally is not only liquidating shorts, but also improving the position structure of spot funds that had previously been trapped.

This may be one of the important reasons why BTC did not immediately see obvious selling pressure after breaking above $84,000, and was instead able to continue extending upward.

After moving from $82,000 to $87,000, the question has already changed

So, looking at this rally now, $84,000 is no longer the most important price. It is more just an intermediate node in the acceleration of this short squeeze.

What has really changed is this: Bitcoin first broke through the $82,000 to $83,000 resistance zone that had persisted for weeks, then passed through the concentrated liquidation band of $84,000 to $85,000, and further pushed above $87,000.

In just one stretch of price action, technical breakouts, short stop-losses, and forced liquidations kept stacking on top of one another.

But the higher BTC goes, the more important one question becomes: after the forced buying ends, who will keep buying?

If ETFs continue to see steady net inflows going forward, while funding rates and open interest do not heat up rapidly because of chase-buying capital entering, then this rally may begin to shift from a "short squeeze" into a trend truly taken over by spot capital.

On the contrary, if prices continue to rise but ETF buying begins to weaken, while open interest and funding rates rise quickly, then the driving force of the rally may shift back from spot to leverage.

At that point, the faster the price rises, the more necessary it is to guard against crowded trades on the other side.

Therefore, after BTC has already broken above $87,000, the market's focus in the next stage should not just be "whether it can reach $90,000."

More importantly, watch three things: whether ETF funds continue to enter, whether leverage heats up rapidly, and whether the previously broken $82,000 to $85,000 area can truly become support on a pullback.

From $82,000 to $87,000, this rally has already proven that a short squeeze can turn an ordinary breakout into a vertical rise.

But from $87,000 upward, what the market will need to prove is something else: after there are fewer and fewer people forced to buy, are there still enough people willing to buy on their own initiative?

Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:

Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia