Bitcoin roars back above $91,000 as geopolitical jolt triggers short squeeze

04/01/2026 09:23 AST

Bitcoin surged back above the $91,000 mark over the weekend, extending an early-year rebound as a sudden geopolitical jolt out of Venezuela injected volatility into global markets and set off a wave of short liquidations across crypto derivatives.

The move underscored how thin liquidity and crowded positioning can quickly amplify price action, even when the underlying catalyst is political rather than crypto-specific.

The world's largest digital asset climbed to around $91,300 during Asian trading hours on Sunday, its highest level since mid-December, and was up more than four per cent over the past week. The rally spilled over into major altcoins, with ether rising toward $3,150, solana gaining more than 1.5 per cent on the day, and XRP and cardano also posting solid weekly advances. The broad-based gains followed a sharp liquidation flush that reset leverage after weeks of cautious, range-bound trading.

Market participants pointed to escalating headlines from Venezuela as the immediate spark. Reports that President Nicolás Maduro had been taken into US custody, followed by statements from President Donald Trump suggesting Washington would exert control over the country and its oil assets, briefly rattled global markets before risk appetite stabilised. While crypto assets have no direct exposure to Venezuelan politics, traders often treat fast-moving geopolitical developments as volatility catalysts that can shake positioning and push prices through key technical levels.

Derivatives data showed that Bitcoin led forced unwinds across the market. According to Coinglass, roughly $180 million in crypto futures positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours, with about $133 million coming from shorts. Bitcoin alone saw more than $58 million in short liquidations versus less than $6 million in longs, a clear sign that the move was driven less by fresh spot buying and more by traders scrambling to cover bearish bets as prices pushed higher.

"This was a classic short squeeze," said one derivatives strategist quoted by CoinDesk, noting that leverage had quietly rebuilt during Bitcoin's recent consolidation. "Once price reclaimed a widely watched moving average, stops started to cascade. In this kind of environment, it doesn't take much demand to force a sharp repricing."

Indeed, technical factors played a central role. Bitcoin's push back above its 50-day moving average marked an important psychological and chart-based milestone after weeks of failing to sustain rallies. Derivatives trader Heisenberg wrote on X that the reclaim improves near-term structure but warned that bulls must still clear the next resistance band to confirm follow-through. Without that, he cautioned, the market could once again be vulnerable to a deeper pullback toward the mid-$70,000s.

Sentiment indicators reflected cautious optimism rather than euphoria. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around Bitcoin remained firmly bullish, but message volume was described as "normal", suggesting the rally has yet to ignite a frenzy of speculative chatter. That relative calm may help explain why the move was so sensitive to positioning: with fewer active participants, price action was dominated by leveraged traders reacting to headlines and technical triggers.

Analysts also emphasised that Bitcoin's response to geopolitical stress has evolved. In earlier cycles, digital assets were often pitched as crisis hedges, but in practice they now tend to trade as high-beta risk assets, at least in the short term. "Crypto doesn't rally because of Venezuela per se," a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst said in a recent note. "It rallies because sudden uncertainty forces repositioning, and when shorts are crowded, the path of least resistance is higher."

The broader context remains supportive, if fragile. Bitcoin is entering the new year after a volatile end to 2025, with macroeconomic uncertainty, shifting expectations around US monetary policy, and uneven liquidity conditions across global markets. In such an environment, traders are quick to fade rallies that lack confirmation - but also quick to cover when key levels break.

Analysts noted that whether Bitcoin can build on this rebound will likely depend on its ability to hold above reclaimed technical support and attract sustained spot demand rather than relying on liquidation-driven momentum. For now, the weekend surge serves as a reminder that in crypto markets, geopolitics, leverage, and psychology can collide suddenly, turning a quiet consolidation into a rapid and dramatic move, they added.

Khaleej Times