BTC Pulls Back After Surging; the Real Test Has Only Just Begun

After breaking above $80k, BTC quickly pulled back and is currently oscillating around $79k. This rally has indeed been fierce, with gains exceeding 25% in a single month. However, it has been driven not only by real money flowing into spot ETFs but also by the boost from forced short liquidations, so the short-term move has not been driven entirely by active buying.

Liquidity conditions have clearly improved. U.S. spot BTC ETFs saw net inflows of approximately $1.92 billion last week, their strongest weekly performance in nearly 10 months; cumulative inflows over the past seven trading days reached approximately $2.5 billion. This shows that institutional funds have indeed re-entered the market, but after BTC's rapid rise, profit-taking pressure from lower-cost holders will also increase.

The biggest variable now is the BTC options expiring on August 28. Approximately 81,700 BTC options on Deribit are set to be settled, with a notional value of about $6.44 billion. The call-to-put ratio is approximately 0.83, and open interest is mainly concentrated around $75,000 and $80,000. Notably, the max pain point is between $68,000 and $70,000, significantly below the current price, so the battle before and after expiration could be extremely intense.

My view is straightforward: $80,000 is no longer an ordinary round-number level, but a point where the costs of bulls and bears are highly concentrated. As long as the market holds $78,000 in the short term, it still has a chance to challenge $80,000–$83,000 again; if it breaks below $78,000, a pullback toward around $75,000 should be expected.

Whether this rally is over cannot be determined by a single candlestick showing a surge and pullback. Once the disruption caused by options settlement subsides, whether ETF inflows can continue and whether spot buying can absorb selling pressure at higher levels will be key to determining whether BTC is undergoing a trend reversal or merely a rebound from oversold conditions.

#BTC重返81000美元 @Gate 广场