#比特币站稳8万关口 Bitcoin surges 30%, reigniting the bull market imagination! A rare scene appears in the derivatives market, with bulls about to hit $100k?

Bitcoin has recently rebounded strongly, rising approximately 30% from the low near $60k, reigniting market expectations for a new crypto bull run. Although the current price is still below the 2025 high of $126k, with institutional allocation expectations heating up, the "digital gold" narrative fermenting again, and rare signals emerging in the derivatives market, discussions about Bitcoin's long-term upside potential have clearly intensified.
According to CoinGecko data, Bitcoin has risen 2.1% in the past 24 hours and is currently hovering around $81,550. As the price rebounds, an unusual phenomenon has appeared in the derivatives market: the 30-day average funding rate for Bitcoin perpetual contracts has been in negative territory for 66 consecutive days, setting the longest record in the past decade.
In the perpetual contract market, when the funding rate is negative, it means that shorts need to pay longs to maintain the peg between the contract price and the spot price. In other words, the longer the short position is held, the higher the cost.
Vetle Lund, head of research at K33 Research, said that long-term negative funding rates have important timing implications. He pointed out that such an environment is often a signal for investors to buy more confidently in history. It is worth noting that persistent negative funding rates do not necessarily mean market sentiment is extremely pessimistic.
Derek Lim, head of research at Caladan, said that in a more institutionalized market, funding rates more often reflect capital flows rather than simple sentiment indicators. He believes that the current sustained negative rate mainly results from structural short supply, rather than retail panic shorting. This includes hedge funds shorting futures during investor redemption cycles, basis traders capturing premiums by going long related stocks and shorting Bitcoin perpetual contracts, and some miners hedging their Bitcoin holdings while shifting to AI computing power businesses.
Bitrue Research Institute's head of research, Andri Fauzan Adziima, also said that the US spot Bitcoin ETF recorded about $2.44 billion in net inflows in April, the strongest monthly performance since 2026. This indicates that institutions are continuing to buy spot Bitcoin while using futures short positions to manage risk. In other words, this is not purely panic selling, but a maturing market structure.
Shorts paying continuously, with increasing risk of a short squeezeCurrently, the annualized cost for Bitcoin shorts to maintain their positions is about 12%. As the price has not broken significantly downward, shorts paying the funding costs continuously means potential short squeeze pressure is building within the market.
Lund's historical analysis shows that since 2018, in six similar environments of long-term negative funding rates, Bitcoin has recorded positive returns over the following 90 days, with a significantly higher success rate than random entries. Meanwhile, the average maximum drawdown during these periods has also narrowed, indicating that environments of negative funding rates often correspond to more favorable medium-term risk-reward structures.
Glassnode analyst cryptovizart recently stated: “Shorts have been paying, but someone on the other side of the market is taking the position, and they haven't sold.”
$82k becomes a key threshold; breaking through could open up the $100k upside potentialSeveral analysts believe that whether Bitcoin can break through key resistance levels will determine if the current structure can turn into stronger upward momentum.
Matthew Pinnock, COO of Altura DeFi, said that if shorts are forced to close, the funding rate could quickly turn positive, pushing Bitcoin to rapidly break through $100k in a short squeeze scenario. Conversely, if spot demand cools before the breakout, Bitcoin could retreat to a range of $70k to $75k for consolidation.
Derek Lim pointed out that the key level is $82k. He said that if Bitcoin can effectively break through $82k and ETF capital inflows continue to confirm, it could trigger a more significant short covering.
Singapore-based trading firm QCP Capital also holds a similar view, considering the $80k to $82k range as a critical obstacle in Bitcoin's recovery process. This range is also close to the 200-day exponential moving average, making technical resistance strong.
ARK bullish outlook: Bitcoin market cap could reach $16 trillion by 2030From a longer-term perspective, institutional optimism about Bitcoin continues to grow.
Cathie Wood's ARK Invest researchers stated that Bitcoin is gradually maturing into a "new institutional asset class" leader. ARK projects that over the next five years, Bitcoin's market cap could expand at a compound annual growth rate of about 63%, rising from the current nearly $2 trillion to $16 trillion by 2030. The firm further predicts that by 2030, the entire crypto asset market could grow from about $2.8 trillion today to $28 trillion, with Bitcoin potentially accounting for about 70% of the market, mainly dominated by smart contract networks like Ethereum and Solana. Cathie Wood previously predicted that by 2030, Bitcoin's price could reach between $300k and $1.5 million, driven by hedging fiat currency devaluation, long-term inflation risks, and deflationary shocks from artificial intelligence. The "digital gold" narrative is heating up, and tokenization could become the next catalyst.
As some institutional investors view Bitcoin as the "new gold," their asset allocation logic is shifting from high-risk speculation to long-term store of value. If Bitcoin can continue to absorb some value from the gold market, its long-term market cap expansion potential will further open.
Meanwhile, asset tokenization is also seen as a key variable driving crypto market expansion. ARK researchers noted that with increased regulatory clarity and improved institutional infrastructure, tokenization of assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, and currencies is expected to accelerate.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev recently stated that the market is in the early stages of a "tokenization supercycle." Over the past year, Robinhood has launched crypto wallets, its own blockchain, and begun offering tokenized stocks. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink also said that tokenization could upgrade the underlying infrastructure of the financial system, making investment products easier to issue, trade, and access globally.