After printing through $80,000 on Monday, 4 May, Bitcoin has finally made its first sustained move above this key psychological barrier since 31 January, and the cleanest session of acceptance through the $78,000–$79,000 overhead supply wall. By Wednesday, 6 May, price has continued to surge to reach a multi-month high, approaching $83,000, supported by strong ETF flow momentum and institutional buying from BTC dependent yield-bearing offerings, such as the Strategy Variable Rate Perpetual Stretch Preferred Shares (STRC).
Indeed, with STRC going ex-dividend on May 15, and already trading close to its $100 base (par value), we attribute a significant portion of the current move to STRC buying. Current trading volumes are over $240 million, and we expect this to move higher on a day-to-day basis until STRC goes ex-dividend.
With BTC now trading above the Short-Term Holder Realised Price (STHRP) and the True Market Mean (TMM), both of which had formed key resistance zones capping upside since late last year, the market is now enjoying a significant breakthrough. Notably, over $200 million in absorbed profit-taking was visible on Tuesday and over $375 million since the current week began as per the aggregate spot tape across exchanges on USDt pairs. However, this has not kept the price from rising.
It is however, the mechanics of the current reclamation, rather than the headline price, that carries the analytical weight. The weekly open has been defended by spot buyers for the third consecutive week, with aggressive start-of-week flows emerging as a persistent theme in the current market environment.
Derivatives did the work
What broke the stalemate was a forced unwind of the most lopsided positioning visible in any major asset in recent weeks. Aggregate positioning on Monday showed a long/short ratio of 36.7 percent long versus 63.3 percent short, a two-thirds skew against price. The move wiped $370 million in 24-hour liquidations across cryptocurrency markets, with $301.93 million of that figure being shorts.
Roughly $150 million in BTC shorts cleared in a single hour as $80,000 broke. Price subsequently held the level for two consecutive sessions after that cluster was crossed, making this a squeeze-and-reclaim move rather than a squeeze-and-reject. Over the past month, liquidations across all assets have been dominated by shorts rather than longs, a structural shift in market structure since October 2025.
In this context, funding is the more interesting data point. Aggregate perpetual funding flipped to +0.0043 percent, trivial in absolute terms, but the 30-day moving average prior was -5 percent. A persistently negative funding regime is the signature of institutional basis-trade behaviour: spot long via exchange-traded fund (ETF) wrappers, futures short to harvest the implied carry. The flip toward neutral doesn’t invalidate the carry trade; it indicates that shorts paying for the privilege are no longer present at scale. Either funding migrates back negative as new ETF capital recreates the trade, or the squeeze has further to run.
ETF streak rebuilt the bid
The reclamation didn’t happen in a vacuum. April closed at $2.44 billion in net inflows, the strongest month of 2026 by a wide margin. May has carried the momentum: $630 million on 1 May (BlackRock $284.4 million, Fidelity $213.4 million, ARK $88.5 million), then $532 million on 4 May, making three consecutive positive sessions. IBIT alone added $335.49 million on Monday and now holds $65.44 billion in net assets, up from $58.5 billion at the time of last week’s report. The Bitfinex Absorption-to-Emission Ratio (AER), which calculates the ratio of accumulation vs mined supply, sits firmly inside the 3x–6x institutional band. Passive demand isn’t driving this; conviction sizing is. Forced miner selling has also subsided alongside an increase in hash rate, with miners distributing less bitcoin over the past two weeks.
The STRC variable enters its window
The STRC ex-dividend date falls on 15 May, with a $0.96 distribution payable 29 May. This is the first STRC cycle since management shifted the schedule from monthly to bi-monthly in mid-April, a structural change that compresses at-the-money (ATM) issuance into shorter, sharper windows. The mechanic to watch is the par-value floor: STRC cannot fund bitcoin purchases through the ATM unless the preferred trades at or above $100.
BTC however, broke the historical STRC ex-dividend slump for the first time in six months, meaning the post-distribution ATM resumption window has become a more reliable bid indicator than the pre-distribution drift (i.e. when no STRC yield payment was imminent) was a sell indicator.
The data point that reframes this cycle: Strategy raised $82 million in MSTR ATM proceeds during the week ended 3 May but bought zero bitcoin. Holdings held at 818,334 BTC at an average cost of $75,537. A non-purchase week is rare and operationally meaningful. Capital appears to be queuing for either the STRC absorption window or a more attractive entry. Q1 ATM raises totalled $7.37 billion, with another $4.32 billion in April. Unspent capital of this scale represents meaningful dry powder.
On-chain confirms the level reclaim
BTC trading above the $78,400 True Market Mean and $78,900 Short-Term Holder Realised Price confluence puts the median 2025 entrant cohort back in profit for the first time since the February 2026 drawdown. Short-term holder behaviour through the move showed passive profit-taking at premium prices (the same signature as the prior failed attempt) being absorbed by spot bid, rather than driving rejection. The $200 million in profit-taking that was absorbed on Tuesday, when price sustained above $80,000 is the cleanest demand-side print of the current uptrend.
While we saw in late March and early April that the long-term holder Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR) dipped below 0.80 on multiple occasions, which is usually a capitulation signature from coins moved at substantial loss, that cohort is no longer driving the market. With STH-SOPR now at 0.92–0.96, it confirms that shorter-dated holders are still distributing at modest losses, but the level has crept upward in line with the price reclaim, with balances remaining relatively stable since May’s monthly open.
What needs to confirm and what kills the move
Triggers worth monitoring in real time: a daily close above $84,766, the next technical reference and upper edge of the prior consolidation zone; ETF streak extension to seven sessions with AER readings sustained inside 3x–6x; STRC pre-ex-dividend price action above par to confirm ATM-window viability.
The triggers that invalidate: a retest printing below $78,000 on spot-led Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD), or funding migrating deeper negative without spot follow-through.
Macro is quieter. ‘Project Freedom’ drove crude down five percent discounting Middle East escalation. With no Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), or Producer Price Index (PPI) released within 48 hours, derivatives and on-chain metrics dominate the signal stack this week.
Bitcoin is squeezing the bear thesis out of the market.
