Bullish Bitcoin derivatives and record long exposure raise liquidation risk

Beincrypto reports Bitcoin derivatives have turned highly bullish as taker buy pressure and long exposure hit notable highs. After facing challenges last week, Bitcoin regained strength—opening 2026 with more than a 7% gain in the first five days of January—before a correction briefly pushed it below $90,000; at the time of writing it traded at $91,299, down 0.81% over the past 24 hours.

Data from CryptoQuant showed the Taker Buy/Sell Ratio climbed to 1.249 today, the highest level since early 2019. The surge in aggressive buying coincides with unusually elevated long exposure among top traders: Joao Wedson said long positions held by large traders have reached their highest level on record and warned, “This partially explains the liquidity hunts carried out by exchanges, driven by high-capital traders.

Exchanges don’t really care about retail traders — what they want are wealthy traders positioned in the wrong direction.” ETF flows have been inconsistent, with SoSoValue reporting $681.01 million exiting funds last week while ETFs drew $187.33 million on Monday. Analyst Darkfost noted an average realized price around $86,000 and said more than $6 billion has exited spot Bitcoin ETFs over the same period.

Key Topics

Crypto, Bitcoin, Taker Buy/sell Ratio, Cryptoquant, Joao Wedson, Spot Etfs