Coinbase Markets: 64% of Bitcoin (BTC) Net Longs Entered Above Spot Price

Update 18:50 UTC: The slide took the coin to roughly $79,146 on Saturday, its lowest in more than a month, before it climbed back above $80,000 with a 24-hour loss of about 2.3% to 2.5%.

Coinbase Markets Flags $81,993 Long Cluster

Coinbase Markets reported on Saturday that the largest cluster of net long Bitcoin (BTC) positions was opened at an average entry of $81,993, and that 64% of net long notional was established above the level where the asset changes hands in spot trading. In a post on X, the exchange's markets desk put the session's question directly: “Do they add or fold?” The post carried a chart of net open positioning by average entry price, showing that the bulk of tracked long exposure in the Bitcoin market sits at prices the coin no longer commands.

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The warning carries weight because of how leveraged longs behave. A position opened through margin trading does not simply absorb a drawdown: once its collateral falls below the venue's requirement, the trade is closed automatically in a liquidation, converting a paper loss into coins sold on the market. That is the mechanism now bearing on the cluster Coinbase described. Timing sharpens it. Bitcoin price stood at $80,595 when the post went out at 12:45 UTC, already 1.5% lower on the day, and it has eased further since, changing hands near $79,588 at the time of writing, about 2.5% down over 24 hours. The retreat extends a selloff that gathered pace earlier in the week. Because most tracked long notional was opened above the current price, a large share of leveraged buyers is underwater. If those accounts cut exposure, their exits add selling pressure; if they add instead, fresh bids could help the price reclaim the $81,993 entry zone. Coinbase's flow data covers institutional and professional accounts, the segment whose entries set the levels other traders watch.

Longs Absorb $346 Million of Liquidations

Derivatives data shows the damage is already being booked. Across the crypto market, $481.25 million in positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours, and longs took $346.15 million of that total. Bitcoin (BTC) accounted for $95.06 million of the closures, with long positions making up $85.90 million against just $9.16 million from shorts. The imbalance means the week's decline has fallen hardest on traders who bought with leverage rather than on those betting against the market. Any further slide risks more forced closures, which would convert a gradual decline into a steeper one as closed longs reach the market as sell orders.

Options pricing points the same direction. In a separate post, Coinbase noted that BTC's 25-delta skew stands at 11.3% for one day, 10.5% for one week and 10.8% for one month, against 3.9% at one year. Puts carry richer implied volatility than comparable calls across every maturity, meaning hedgers are paying up for short and medium-term downside protection while treating year-ahead risk as far smaller. The path from here runs through the choice Coinbase framed: traders leveraged into the pullback can add at lower prices, fold their positions, or extend their HODL through the drawdown. One recent read from the technical side placed the next defended floor near $74,000, where a higher-low call by analyst Killa argues the broader uptrend remains intact.

The unwind worsened after Coinbase's post. As Bitcoin (BTC) slipped below $80,000 on Saturday, more than $200 million in crypto positions were liquidated within a single hour, with traders betting on higher prices accounting for $191.33 million of that total. Coinglass data puts the wider 24-hour figure at $837.12 million across 227,681 traders, a newer reading than the totals cited earlier in the session, with longs absorbing $693.05 million, or 82.8%. Bitcoin led the tally at $232.55 million and Ethereum followed at $181.51 million, longs making up more than 93% of each, and Binance recorded the largest single closure, an $11.85 million long on the ETH pair. Glassnode estimates also show the coin now trading below the average price corporate treasuries paid per coin, leaving the average corporate holder's position at a loss.

The slide took the coin to roughly $79,146 on Saturday, its lowest in more than a month, before it climbed back above $80,000 with a 24-hour loss of about 2.3% to 2.5%. Coinglass put liquidations past $810 million over the past day, including roughly $689 million from longs, spread across more than 200,000 traders, as the break below $80,000 accelerated forced closures in thin weekend liquidity.

Our composite support and resistance scoring frames the session as a test of two bands: support at $80,456.00, where several indicators converge for a score of 75 out of 100, sits just below the live price of $80,624.50 after a 0.46% daily drop, with a deeper floor at $75,034.10, scored 81 out of 100. The nearest strong resistance is $81,720.83, scored 84 out of 100, with a heavier ceiling above at $84,208.06, scored 88 out of 100, so bulls face two bands before a real breakout. Positioning is not crowded: perp funding runs at 0.0034%, open interest stands at $16.3B and the long/short account ratio is 2.28, with 69.5% of accounts long, alongside a sideways trend read and an RSI of 43.04. Combined with a neutral Fear & Greed Index of 51, the picture is balanced: reclaim $81,720.83 and the next test is $84,208.06, lose $80,456.00 and the long side regroups from a stronger base near $75,034.10 (as of 23:27 UTC).