BITCOIN US OPEN UPDATE
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Bitcoin is currently trading around $77,350, give or take, and price is all over the place at the start of the U.S. open.

We are seeing aggressive moves in both directions, with Bitcoin moving up and down by close to $1,000 inside this range.

The problem is that because we have failed to break the downside properly, the upside now feels more likely in the short term.

I am actually happy with the small long positions I opened earlier, although I may not feel the same if price comes back down to my entry. The sizing on those trades is aggressive relative to that smaller account balance, so they need to be managed properly.

For the Bitcoin long, I will probably move the stop loss to entry and let it play out. For the other smaller positions, I will likely close them before I go to sleep.

Until Bitcoin breaks above $77,600, we are still technically inside the range. That means we are still range trading, not trending.

I have not checked the latest liquidity map yet, but I would expect the main liquidity peak to be below the current price. Even so, my gut still tells me we go up, not down, for the remainder of the day.

Across the broader market, there is also a clear bullish tone.

MicroStrategy stock is up at the open.
Gemini stock is up at the open.
Coinbase is only slightly down.
The S&P 500 is up close to 1%.

So right now, I do not see a major catalyst that forces Bitcoin lower before the end of today’s session. The obvious pressure, at least for now, feels more to the upside.

That said, the downside level still matters.

The key support I am watching is around $76,800 to $76,852. These levels move as the market develops, so you have to stay updated, but right now that is the area that matters.

If Bitcoin loses that level, it becomes very bearish.

A break below there would likely complete the move down towards around $76,200, and I do not expect that level to hold well if we approach it aggressively.

So for now, the plan is simple.

Above $76,850, the short-term upside remains alive.

Below $76,850, the market starts looking dangerous again.

BITCOIN FUNDING, LIQUIDITY & OPEN INTEREST CHECK
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There is something important to point out when comparing Bitcoin funding rates, the liquidation heat map, and open interest.

Bitcoin funding is mostly positive, but I do not think that automatically means the market is bullish. What I think is happening here is more specific: Bitcoin may be creating a short-term trap.

On the liquidation heat map, there is a key liquidity zone around $76,700. Bitcoin has already started touching that downside liquidity, and the longer price trades around this area, the more attractive that zone becomes.

Below that, the next important level is around $75,700, which shows up more clearly on the weekly Bitcoin liquidation heat map.

At the same time, the weekly heat map does not show a huge amount of liquidity immediately below current price until we get closer to that yellow zone. Above current price, there is more liquidity available, but it is not as intense. So the heat map alone is not giving a perfect answer.

That is why we need to compare it with funding, open interest, and long/short positioning.

Right now, I am watching for fresh long exposure, and it is not really coming in with strength. This does not look like a market where traders are aggressively opening new longs.

Instead, the price rise appears to be coming mainly from short positions closing. When shorts close, they have to buy back into the market, which pushes price up. That can create a bounce without it being genuine new bullish demand.

Then, when we see sharp moves to the downside, those appear to be coming from long positions closing.

So the key point is this: exposure is not really increasing. It is decreasing.

That is also clear on the aggregated Bitcoin open interest chart on the one-hour timeframe. Open interest is dropping, which means positions are being closed. If price is rising while open interest is falling, that usually suggests short-covering, not fresh bullish positioning.

This supports the larger Bitcoin short.

The bigger trade is still based on the broader bearish structure, and that has not changed.

However, the smaller short-term long is a separate trade on a separate timeframe. That trade is based on the possibility of a short-covering bounce towards the CME gap around $79,000.

So there is no contradiction here.

The larger position is a longer-term short.

The smaller position is a short-term bounce trade inside that broader bearish structure.

If the short-term long works, we catch the bounce.

If it fails, the larger short benefits.

That is why I am still willing to give the smaller long some room, even though the profit has dropped back to around $3,000. We could close it now, but based on the way Bitcoin has been moving recently, I think it is still worth letting the U.S. session decide the direction.

My confidence in the smaller long has reduced slightly because Bitcoin sold off aggressively, but this market has repeatedly been reversing moves within 30 minutes. Until the structure properly breaks, I do not want to overreact.

The important thing is to separate the timeframes.

Short term, Bitcoin can still squeeze higher and close the CME gap.

Longer term, the open interest and liquidity structure still support the bearish case.

That is the trade-off right now. The range is messy, the data is mixed, and we are in no-man’s land, so the decision has to stay dynamic.

BITCOIN FUNDING RATE CHECK
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Starting today with the Bitcoin funding rates.

Looking at the funding data, we can see funding is starting to move back in the direction of green again. In yesterday’s data, there was a lot more white on the screen, which showed funding moving closer to neutral and slightly more positive.

Today, the green is starting to return, which tells us funding is shifting back towards the negative side again.

To be clear, funding is not negative across every exchange. That is not the main point here. What matters more is the direction of travel, and right now the direction is starting to lean back towards bearish pressure.

This gets especially interesting when we compare it to the period between February 3rd and February 8th, 2026.

On the Bitcoin open interest weighted funding rate chart, we can see that during that period, Bitcoin price was moving lower while open interest weighted funding first ran up aggressively, then dropped sharply afterwards.

That chop in funding matched the chop in price.

Now, we are seeing a similar setup again. Bitcoin open interest weighted funding is still dropping meaningfully, and the structure going into this looks very similar to the end of January, which I’ve highlighted on the chart.

At the end of January, funding had been thick and green for a while. Then it briefly dipped red, and during that period, Bitcoin dropped from around $86,500 down to about $81,000.

After that, the market was met with another aggressive wave of green, followed by more red, and price kept getting chopped up inside that range.

That is exactly what this current setup looks like it may be preparing for again.

So the read here is fairly simple.

If Bitcoin was going to close the CME gap quickly, we probably should have seen more strength by now. Instead, funding is starting to turn back towards the bearish side, open interest weighted funding is rolling over, and the structure is beginning to look like shorts are taking control again.

That does not mean price drops in a straight line. It means the market is starting to look choppy, heavy, and increasingly controlled by the bears.

For now, the funding data supports the idea that the short positions are starting to take back control.

BITCOIN LIQUIDATION HEAT MAP ANALYSIS
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Now let’s move on to the Bitcoin liquidation heat map for today.

Starting with the 24-hour heat map, we can see liquidity sitting both above and below the current Bitcoin price. There is a decent range above, but the more attractive level right now appears to be just below price, sitting slightly above the $76,500 area that I pointed out earlier.

If Bitcoin loses $76,500, I think the move lower could happen very quickly. That is why I’ve drawn the arrow straight down on the chart. If that level breaks, the market could flush hard into the next downside range.

Moving over to the 48-hour heat map, the picture is similar, but slightly different. The liquidity below price is not quite as thick as it looks on the 24-hour chart, but that is because it is newer liquidity. It has formed more recently, and the longer it sits there, the more attractive it becomes as a target.

The important thing here is timing.

On the 48-hour chart, the liquidity above current price started forming more than 24 hours ago. That tells us those upside levels have been sitting there for a while. But the downside liquidity has built more recently, especially as traders opened long positions during yesterday’s bounce.

You can see this clearly in the middle of the chart, where price was moving back up and longs started entering the market. As those long positions opened, the lower liquidation band started getting thicker. I’ve marked this with the arrow and my very crude “thicker” label on the chart.

The reason that matters is simple: when price goes up and traders open leveraged longs, those long positions create downside liquidation levels. If price starts reversing, those fresh high-leverage longs become very attractive targets for the market to take out.

That is why this lower range is important. It is fresh liquidity, it is likely highly leveraged, and if price starts moving into it, liquidations can happen quickly.

This is exactly what I mean when I say futures can determine short-term direction, but spot determines the longer-term trend.

Futures positioning can push price around over hours or days. But if spot demand is weak, those futures-led pumps tend not to last.

That is why the next thing we need to analyse is Bitcoin spot volume versus futures volume. We need to understand where the volume is actually coming from. If futures volume is strong but spot volume is dropping off again, then this pump becomes much harder to trust.

Now, moving to the one-week Bitcoin liquidation heat map, we can see major levels above and below price. There is a particularly important level around $76,500, and that level has been building aggressively since around the 19th. It is now the 22nd, so this liquidity has had roughly three days to develop.

That is not something to ignore.

A lot of that comes from fresh long positions opened during this range, and if Bitcoin starts breaking down, that level becomes an obvious target.

Above price, there is still liquidity, but a lot of the closer upside short liquidity has already been partly eaten by the recent move. So we have to ask whether the higher levels, including the area around $81,000 and the open CME gap above, are attractive enough to pull price higher before the downside liquidity gets taken.

That is the real question.

But we cannot draw a proper conclusion from the heat map alone. Before deciding anything, we need to analyse the spot data and understand whether real demand is entering the market, or whether this move is being driven mostly by futures positioning.

That is the point of doing this analysis every day.

Yes, we have open positions, but the goal is not to force the data to agree with the trade. The goal is to approach the market with a neutral slate, test both sides, and work out what the numbers are actually telling us.

If the data says we are wrong, we change.

If the data confirms the trade, we hold.

That is how you stay correct.