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Record Short Liquidations Reshape Bitcoin Outlook
Bitcoin’s sharp recovery has raised the possibility that Geoffrey Kendrick’s $100,000 year-end forecast may prove too conservative, the Standard Chartered analyst wrote in research provided directly on Aug. 21. Kendrick is global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered Bank. He said rising prices had forced traders to close bearish positions while encouraging renewed demand from longer-term investors.
The scale of the reversal led Kendrick to describe the week as bitcoin’s largest short-liquidation event in the available record. The accompanying 90-day chart from Coinglass shows $BTC short liquidations approaching $1.44 billion during the Aug. 19-21 rally, the largest daily total shown during that window. Kendrick noted that Coinglass data extending back to June 2021 ranked this as the largest $BTC short-liquidation event in the dataset.
The Standard Chartered head of digital assets research connected the record short liquidations with growing upside risk for his year-end target, stating:
“For the first time this year there is now a risk my end year forecast (of USD100k) is too low.”
This upside risk partly reflects how forced position closures can accelerate an already-rising market. Short liquidations occur when exchanges automatically close leveraged bearish positions after rising prices reduce their margin below maintenance requirements. These forced purchases can amplify an advance by adding demand to an already-rising market. A liquidation cascade can develop when one wave of forced purchases drives bitcoin toward another cluster of liquidation levels, triggering more closures and further buying.
ETF Inflows Add Demand Beyond the Short Squeeze
Institutional demand also strengthened as U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) returned to net inflows during the rally. Kendrick estimated that the funds had collected approximately $1.5 billion by early Aug. 21. Updated U.S. spot bitcoin ETF data showed $1.61 billion across the first four trading sessions of the week. The final session added approximately $307.5 million on Aug. 21, bringing the five-day total to about $1.92 billion.
The strongest session of the period came on Aug. 20, when the funds attracted $606.29 million. Blackrock’s IBIT accounted for $502.99 million, or approximately 83% of the daily total. Aug. 19 contributed $517.19 million after smaller gains on Aug. 17 and Aug. 18.
Spot bitcoin ETFs hold bitcoin through regulated fund structures, allowing investors to gain price exposure through brokerage accounts without owning or securing the asset directly. Share creations and redemptions connect fund demand to underlying bitcoin purchases and sales. Sustained inflows can require funds or their authorized participants to acquire bitcoin, while redemptions can generate selling.
The Standard Chartered analyst described bitcoin as a “Giffen good” for long-term investors, explaining that “people want to buy more when prices go up.” He linked that pattern to renewed ETF inflows and expects rising prices to draw more attention and capital to the asset.
What Triggered Bitcoin’s Three-Day Run
The rally accelerated after the U.S. Department of the Treasury expanded its planned liquidity-support buybacks for longer-dated government securities. The Treasury’s Aug. 19 announcement doubled the maximum purchase size from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation, beginning Sept. 9 and continuing through Nov. 4.
President Donald Trump supplied a second catalyst on Aug. 19, gathering crypto executives, financial market leaders and federal regulators at a White House crypto event. Brian Armstrong, chief executive of crypto exchange Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN), urged senators at the meeting to advance the CLARITY Act. The president pressed lawmakers directly, telling the gathering, “We need Congress to take the next step by passing the CLARITY Act.” Bitcoin cleared $70,000 the same day and climbed to $71,834, its first move above that level since early June.
Kendrick characterized that intervention as favorable for bitcoin’s store-of-value narrative, arguing that the asset allows investors to hold wealth outside central control. Bitcoin reached $79,500 on Aug. 21, its highest level since May, while traders betting against it lost $3 billion in a single 24-hour window, the largest short-side wipeout since 2021.
The chart’s $1.44 billion figure covers bitcoin positions alone rather than the wider crypto derivatives market. Short liquidations across crypto markets exceeded $1.22 billion in a separate 24-hour window, and Coinglass data cited on Aug. 21 put bitcoin short liquidations at $764 million over 24 hours.
What Bitcoin Needs to Reach $126,000
Bitcoin set its record high on Oct. 6, 2025, and has not returned to that level since. Kendrick’s analysis concluded:
“Once investors remember how quickly prices can accelerate to the topside, and we get passed the 6 October date (12 months after the all-time high) an overshoot towards the all-time high (USD126k) before year-end may be possible.”
Beyond the potential price overshoot, Kendrick also pointed to comparatively low futures open interest, which measures outstanding derivatives contracts. Crypto markets lagged the artificial intelligence investment theme earlier in the year, leaving room for renewed participation as prices rise, he said. Higher open interest would indicate greater derivatives activity but would not establish a price direction.
Standard Chartered cut the year-end target to $100,000 from $150,000 in February, a reduction Kendrick tied to macro weakness and expected fund selling. He wrote then that ETF holders were “more likely to sell, rather than buy the dip, for now,” the opposite of the buying pattern he now describes. The bank’s longer-range path carries bitcoin from $100,000 this year to $500,000 by 2030, with ether at $40,000 over the same horizon.
Source: cryptonews.net