Bitcoin Nears $87K as ETF Inflows Fuel $558M Crypto Short Squeeze

The cryptocurrency market approached the $3 trillion capitalization mark on Tuesday after a sharp Bitcoin rally triggered hundreds of millions of dollars in liquidations and attracted heavy institutional inflows.

Bitcoin surged toward $87,400 during the move, forcing traders to close roughly $557.79 million in leveraged positions, according to CoinGlass data cited in the original report. Short positions represented about 70% of liquidations, led by $242.47 million in BTC perpetual contracts and $100.83 million in Ethereum perpetuals.

Institutional demand provided additional momentum. Spot crypto ETFs recorded more than $1.9 billion in net inflows over 24 hours, according to SoSoValue figures cited in the report. Bitcoin products attracted $1.36 billion, while Solana received $257.25 million, Ethereum drew $223.51 million and XRP added $45.54 million. Hyperliquid's HYPE token also reached a record high near $96.

Bitcoin later stabilized around the mid-$85,000 range as traders assessed a temporary USDe liquidity squeeze on Binance that briefly pushed the stablecoin to $0.92.

Meanwhile, Binance is restructuring parts of its trading market by removing 19 low-liquidity spot and margin pairs. Seven USDC spot pairs involving AIXBT, DOLO, ENJ, HUMA, SXT, TNSR and TURTLE are scheduled to stop trading on September 25 at 03:00 UTC.