Bitcoin (BTC) bottomed out after CME futures speculators turned overall bullish in April 2025. An analogous positioning shift is emerging in 2026, increasing the likelihood of a BTC price recovery in the approaching weeks.
Key insights:
BTC futures and technical data suggest a price goal of $85,000
According to the CFTC Commitment of Traders (COT) report released last week, non-commercial Bitcoin futures traders have reduced their net position to about -1,600 contracts from about +1,000 the previous month.
Net short position on Bitcoin futures. Source: CFTC Commitment of Traders (COT)
In practice, because of this large speculators, including hedge funds and similar financial institutions, have moved from net short to long positions, with bulls outnumbering bears on the CME.
The rapid net-short unwinding implies that “smart money” has added long positions “with some urgency,” said analyst Tom McClellan, pointing to 2 similar past swings that preceded Bitcoin price lows.
For example, the worth of BTC rose by around 70% following a pointy decline in CME Bitcoin futures net short positions in April 2025. In 2023, the worth of BTC increased by over 190% under similar conditions within the futures market.
Weekly BTC/USD price chart. Source: TradingView
Starting in February, the smart money swing is flaring up 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 a lot of the last decade's major declines.
As of Sunday, BTC’s 200-week EMA was around $68,350.
Weekly BTC/USD price chart. Source: TradingView
The last time Bitcoin traded around this moving average during sharp sell-offs (2015, 2018, and 2020), it finally marked the top of the downtrend and the beginning of a brand new recovery phase.
Bitcoin's weekly relative strength index (RSI) stays in oversold territory, an indication that selling pressure is sort of exhausted.
This further increases Bitcoin’s probabilities of a recovery in the approaching weeks. A decisive rebound from the 200-week EMA could trigger an increase towards the 100-week EMA (the purple wave) at around $85,000 by April.
The Bitcoin bulls usually are not out of the woods yet
McClellan warned that the smart money move is “a condition and never a signal,” meaning Bitcoin could still slide from its current price level before a everlasting low is formed.
This could trigger the 2022 scenario where BTC plunges over 40% after falling below its 200-week EMA despite similar oversold conditions.
Weekly BTC/USD price chart. Source: TradingView
A repeat of this 40% plunge in 2026 could see BTC price fall towards $40,000, or 60% from its record high of around $126,270.
Some analysts, including Kaiko, also imagine that BTC could potentially bottom around $40,000 to $50,000 as a result of its “four-year cycle” framework.
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