Bitcoin pushed back above $80,000 for the first time since late January, as traders reacted to a mix of geopolitical relief, steady ETF demand and a moderate short squeeze across crypto derivatives markets.
BTC traded near $80,000 after touching an intraday high of $80,529, reaching its highest level since January 31. The break matters because $80,000 had become the market’s nearest psychological ceiling after weeks of recovery from deeper Q1 stress.
Why Is The Bitcoin Price Up Today?
The main catalyst appeared to come from Washington. In a Truth Social post on Sunday, US President Donald Trump announced “Project Freedom,” an operation he said would help ships stranded by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump framed the move as a “humanitarian gesture” for neutral countries affected by the US-Israeli war with Iran, saying the US would “guide their Ships safely” through restricted waterways so they could resume business.
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The message landed in a market already sensitive to any shift in the Hormuz standoff. The initiative is scheduled to begin Monday and could involve guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraft and 15,000 service members, while Iran denounced the plan as a possible ceasefire violation. “They are victims of circumstance,” Trump wrote of the stranded crews. Any interference, he added, would “have to be dealt with forcefully.”
For crypto traders, the important point was not that Hormuz risk disappeared. It did not. The point was that the US announcement gave markets a concrete de-escalation path after weeks in which blocked shipping, higher energy risk and uncertainty around Iran had weighed on broader risk appetite. Iran’s effective closure of the strait had shaken global markets, with ships and seafarers stranded in the Persian Gulf since the war began.
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Derivatives positioning then amplified the move. CoinGlass data shows $356.55 million in total crypto liquidations over 24 hours, including $303.88 million in short liquidations against $52.66 million in longs. Bitcoin accounted for the largest liquidation block in the heatmap at $170.69 million, followed by Ethereum at $91.60 million. That is consistent with a moderate short squeeze: bearish positions were forced to buy back into a rising market, adding mechanical demand just as BTC cleared the $80,000 area.
The squeeze was not the only support. Spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the US recorded a fifth consecutive week of inflows, totaling $153.87 million last week, according to SoSoValue data. That flow profile helped strengthen the argument that the move was not purely a headline-driven spike, but also reflected continued institutional allocation after weeks of recovery.
At press time, BTC traded at $79,865.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com