Bitcoin faces major short liquidation cluster near $90K, Glassnode says

Bitcoin’s biggest pool of vulnerable short bets is sitting right overhead. On October 4, 2026, on-chain analytics firm Glassnode flagged that the largest short liquidation cluster sits near the $90,000 level.

With Bitcoin trading between $85,000 and $86,000 at the time, that cluster is not some distant target. It is a few percentage points away, which is close enough to make leveraged bears a little twitchy.

If price reaches that zone, Glassnode’s data suggests a wave of leveraged short positions could be forced to close. That kind of mechanical unwinding is how a quiet market turns loud in a hurry.

What Glassnode’s heatmap shows

Traders who short Bitcoin with borrowed money are betting the price will fall. If it rises instead and hits a certain threshold, exchanges close those positions automatically to protect the borrowed funds. Closing a short means buying the asset back. When enough of those forced purchases land at once, they can push the price higher, which can trip the next batch of liquidations.

Glassnode’s read is that the densest concentration of these trip wires sits around $90,000. Estimates of cumulative short liquidations approaching that level run into the hundreds of millions of dollars across various trading platforms, though those figures are not uniform across sources.

The firm also pointed to smaller clusters that formed over the prior two months, near $83,000 and $75,000. According to Glassnode, movement toward either of those levels could speed up the market’s next directional move.

How we got here

Earlier in the year, a dense band of short positions had built up between $82,000 and $86,000. That band was largely cleared out during the rallies of August and September, which followed record short liquidations. One of the standout moments was a one-day flush on August 19, a major short liquidation event that added to market volatility and helped fuel upward movement.

With the $82,000 to $86,000 band mostly wiped out, the next meaningful cluster of overhead exposure has shifted up toward $90,000.

What this means for traders

Glassnode’s analysis relies on liquidation heatmaps, which are built from estimated leveraged exposure. They show where forced closures could pile up, not where price is headed.

The maps also reflect estimated exposure on major centralized exchanges and exclude certain perpetual futures platforms, so the true size of the positioning near $90,000 could differ from what any single chart shows.

If Bitcoin climbs into the $90,000 zone and triggers a large batch of short closures, the resulting forced buying could add momentum. If Bitcoin stalls below $90,000, attention would likely turn to the smaller clusters near $83,000 and $75,000. Glassnode’s point that a move toward those levels could accelerate the next swing suggests the downside path carries its own volatility risk.

Liquidation clusters are not fixed. They grow as new leveraged positions open and shrink as traders close out or get liquidated. If the $90,000 cluster keeps thickening while Bitcoin hovers in the mid-$80,000s, the potential squeeze gets bigger. If it thins out, the setup loses some of its punch.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.