Bitcoin ETF Holders Turn Profitable as BTC Tops $86,800, $750M in Shorts Wiped Out

Bitcoin’s average spot ETF holder is back in profit for the first time since January, as the coin’s price pushed past $86,000 on Monday. Two independent outlets, Bitcoin Magazine and The Block, both confirm the same underlying move: a rally that flipped ETF cost basis into the green and triggered a sharp squeeze on short positions.

The two reports capture the rally at slightly different moments. The Block put Bitcoin at $85,000, a level not seen since January, while Bitcoin Magazine, reporting later the same day, had it trading near $86,772 after an intraday high of $86,837. Neither number is wrong. They are simply two snapshots of the same fast-moving session, taken minutes or hours apart.

The ETF profit threshold

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart flagged on X that Monday’s rally pushed the average investor in U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs above an estimated cost basis of $81.72, the first time that has happened since January. That detail comes from a single source, Bitcoin Magazine, and has not been independently corroborated in the second report, so treat the exact dollar figure as sourced but unverified elsewhere.

Bitcoin Magazine also cited Farside Investors data showing U.S. spot ETFs, run by issuers including BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale and Morgan Stanley, pulled in roughly $593 million in fresh flows on Thursday and Friday alone, after a net weekly inflow of just over $6 million. That gap between the weekly total and the two-day figure suggests outflows earlier in the week were largely offset by a late rush back into the products.

$750 million in shorts wiped out

The Block reported that CoinGlass recorded at least $750 million in crypto liquidations over 24 hours, with most of the forced closures hitting short positions. This figure comes from a single outlet citing a single data provider. It has not appeared in the second report, so it should be read as reported by The Block rather than as a cross-confirmed market-wide total.

A wave of short liquidations tends to amplify an upward move mechanically, as traders betting on lower prices are forced to buy back their positions. That dynamic is consistent with the speed of Monday’s climb, even though the precise $750 million figure sits on one source rather than two.

Rally against a rough policy backdrop

Both outlets note that the surge came despite headwinds. The Clarity Act, key crypto market-structure legislation, was blocked last week, and the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in the same stretch. Neither event stopped Bitcoin from climbing.

Bitcoin Magazine traced the broader momentum back to August, when the Treasury Department said it would at least double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks, a move that preceded Bitcoin’s best week since 2023. The coin later hit an all-time high in October before the rally unwound in the largest liquidation event in crypto history, with more than $19 billion in leveraged bets closed. Even after Monday’s climb, Bitcoin remains more than 30% below its October peak of $126,080.

Read more: Bitcoin ETFs Lose $450M, Deepest Since June, as CLARITY Act Stalls in Senate

For readers tracking these numbers through an API rather than a headline, the lesson is simple. A $85,000 print and an $86,837 print from the same day are not a contradiction. They are two timestamps on one event, and the ETF cost-basis figure and the liquidation total each rest on a single named source until a second outlet independently confirms them.

Sources

• bitcoinmagazine.com
• theblock.co