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Key points:
Bitcoin whales flip bearish on BTC price action hours before Trump makes another White House announcement.
“Insider” market bets have featured prominently since Oct. 10, when Bitcoin hit $102,000 on Binance.
Traders say that $107,000 is now the next line in the sand.
Bitcoin (BTC) risked fresh losses into Thursday’s Wall Street open as whales flipped short BTC.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingViewBitcoin whales pile on shorts again
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC price action tapping but failing to hold $110,000.
Acting in an increasingly narrow range, BTC/USD offered little cause for optimism ahead of some classic volatility triggers.
US President Donald Trump was scheduled to make an announcement from the White House at 3 pm Eastern Time, and large-volume Bitcoin traders were betting on bad news.
Bitcoin OG Kyle Chasse described one whale’s 40X leveraged BTC short as “insane.”
INSANE!!!
This whale deposited $3M $USDC into Hyperliquid recently.
Shorting $BTC with 40x leverage!!!
Trump is also making an announcement from the White House today.
COINCIDENCE??? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/9n6n0LKtf7
“We see quite a big liquidation cluster just above $106k,” he added in a further post on X.
An accompanying chart showed liquidation levels on exchange order books from monitoring resource CoinGlass, with these often acting as near-term price magnets.
BTC liquidation heatmap. Source: Kyle Chasse/X
Meanwhile, Additional CoinGlass data showed various new whale shorts opening on the day, including those with a significant amount of leverage.
Bitcoin whale short selection (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass
As Cointelegraph reported, suspicions have accompanied whale plays throughout October after certain entities appeared to front-run news headlines and comments from Trump. The phenomenon originally surfaced on Oct. 10, when BTC/USDT fell from all-time highs to a low of $102,000 on Binance.
Concentrating on overall trader behavior, onchain analytics platform Glassnode revealed “defensive” positioning.
“Net-premium flows reveal concentrated selling across the $109K–$115K range, indicating that recent moves higher are being used to hedge,” it reported on Bitcoin options markets.
“This suggests traders are positioning defensively into strength while the market consolidates.”
Bitcoin options net premium strike heatmap. Source: Glassnode/XBearish BTC price predictions stay in place
Already bearish market participants doubled down on their existing warnings.
Related: Bitcoin price to 6X in 2026? M2 supply boom sparks COVID-19 comparisons
Trader Roman, concerned about a lack of trading volume even at the all-time highs, said that the situation would turn “get ugly fast” for Bitcoin below $107,000.
“So far we’ve held but I wanted to show that it’s not just a horizontal support, it’s a diagonal support for a near year and a half long uptrend,” he told X followers about the weekly chart.
BTC/USD one-week chart. Source: Roman/X
Fellow trader Daan Crypto Trades agreed that volume in the current range was “pretty thin.”
“The $111K level is what matters in the short term. If price can break and hold above that point, we can start looking for higher,” he wrote on the day.
“It's good that the $107K level held during all this weakness also from stocks yesterday. But that is a key support to hold going forward.”
BTC/USDT perpetual contract four-hour chart. Source: Daan Crypto Trades/XThis article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
