Bitcoin has just dropped again, falling from $79,399 yesterday back to $76,923, a decline of about 2.4%. I looked at other coins too—Ethereum, Solana, and Ripple all slipped as well, with drops of around 3%. The interesting thing behind this downturn is that there are notable disagreements over what’s happening; analysts interpret this market move completely differently.

One camp says that retail investors and institutions have truly returned, and spot demand is heating up—meaning there may still be upside potential. The other camp believes it’s mainly shorts being squeezed, and that price has been pushed higher by liquidation/short-squeezing activity in the derivatives market. Once the short covering is finished, the market faces a risk of a pullback. I checked the funding rate data, and it has remained negative throughout the past week, which also shows that shorts are still paying fees to longs, so the squeeze is indeed still ongoing. Interestingly, these two viewpoints don’t actually contradict each other—it's possible that both retail and institutional buy orders and short covering are happening at the same time.

The key is whether the $79,000 level can hold steady. From a technical perspective, Bitcoin has touched this price area three times, turning it into the current ceiling. This week, the Federal Reserve will hold a meeting, and major tech companies will release their earnings reports—both of these could be catalysts to break the deadlock. If strong signals emerge, Bitcoin could break through $80,000; if not, this level will gradually solidify as the top of the range. For now, the market is still waiting for these key events to play out.