NewsBTC
Mar 24, 2026 upd. 9 Jun

$44M short squeeze lifts BTC as spot demand lags

1 min

Short squeeze lifted Bitcoin above $71k. Buyers didn’t chase the move.

BTC hit a weekly high on Binance during the US session. The push came from forced short covers, not fresh spot bids.

- Futures positioning thinned out. Aggregated open interest on BTC futures fell ~9,700 BTC, or 3.5%, over 13 hours while price climbed.
- US spot appetite stayed weak. The Coinbase premium index stayed negative through the spike.

BTC market move chart

Binance spot activity looks thin. March is pacing for ~$52B in spot volume, the lowest since Q3 2023 and down from $88B in September 2023, per CryptoQuant.

A geopolitical headline kicked off the move. Reports said President Donald Trump paused planned strikes on Iran’s energy sites amid talks. Iran’s foreign ministry denied talks, but BTC still jumped.

For now, price stalled near $71–72k. Clear spot demand to break higher hasn’t shown up.