Crypto: Bitcoin Price May Rebound To $85k As Cme 'smart Money' Slashes Shorts

Futures traders slashed bearish Bitcoin bets last month, a shift that preceded a 70% rally in 2025 and a 190% increase in the BTC price in 2023.

Bitcoin (BTC) bottomed after CME futures speculators turned net bullish in April 2025. A similar positioning shift is resurfacing in 2026, raising the odds of a BTC price recovery in the coming weeks.

Smart money reduced its bearish bets on Bitcoin in the past month.

Such a sentimental shift preceded a 70% BTC price rally in 2025 and 190% price gain in 2023.

Non-commercial Bitcoin futures traders cut their net position to about -1,600 contracts from roughly +1,000 a month earlier, according to the CFTC Commitment of Traders (COT) report published last week.

In practice, this means that large speculators, including hedge funds and similar financial institutions, have shifted from net short to long, with bulls outnumbering bears on the CME.

The rapid net-short unwind implies that “smart money” added longs “with some urgency,” said analyst Tom McClellan, while pointing to two similar past swings that preceded Bitcoin price bottoms.

For instance, BTC’s price gained around 70% after a sharp dip in CME Bitcoin futures net shorts in April 2025. In 2023, BTC price rose by over 190% under similar futures market conditions.

As of February, the smart money swing is flashing once again, just as Bitcoin defends its 200-week exponential moving average (200-week EMA, the blue line), which has acted as a bear-market floor in most major drawdowns of the last decade.

On Sunday, BTC’s 200-week EMA was hovering around near $68,350.

Source: CoinTelegraph