Key Takeaways
- •Bitcoin whales are increasing their short positions on BTC price action shortly before an anticipated White House announcement by Donald Trump.
- •Market participants have observed significant "insider" bets on Bitcoin price movements since October 10th, when BTC reached $102,000 on Binance.
- •Traders are now watching the $107,000 level, identifying it as the next critical point for Bitcoin's price action.
Bitcoin Whales Pile on Shorts Again
Bitcoin (BTC) faced the risk of fresh losses heading into Thursday's Wall Street trading session as significant holders, often referred to as whales, shifted to short positions.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView indicated that the BTC price action struggled to maintain the $110,000 level.
Trading within an increasingly narrow range, BTC/USD offered limited optimism ahead of typical volatility triggers.
US President Donald Trump was scheduled to deliver an announcement from the White House at 3 pm Eastern Time, and large-volume Bitcoin traders appeared to be anticipating negative news.
Bitcoin veteran Kyle Chasse described one whale's decision to use 40X leverage for a BTC short as "insane."
INSANE!!!
— Kyle Chassé / DD🐸 (@kyle_chasse) October 23, 2025
This whale deposited $3M $USDC into Hyperliquid recently.
Shorting $BTC with 40x leverage!!!
Trump is also making an announcement from the White House today.
COINCIDENCE??? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/9n6n0LKtf7
Chasse further commented in a post on X, "We see quite a big liquidation cluster just above $106k."
An accompanying chart displayed liquidation levels on exchange order books, sourced from the monitoring resource CoinGlass. These levels often act as short-term price targets.
Additional data from CoinGlass revealed the opening of several new whale short positions on the day, some employing significant leverage.
As previously reported, suspicions have surrounded whale activity throughout October, with certain entities appearing to anticipate news headlines and statements from Trump. This trend first emerged on October 10th, when BTC/USDT dropped from all-time highs to a low of $102,000 on Binance.
Analyzing overall trader behavior, the onchain analytics platform Glassnode highlighted "defensive" positioning in the market.
Glassnode reported on Bitcoin options markets, stating, "Net-premium flows reveal concentrated selling across the $109K–$115K range, indicating that recent moves higher are being used to hedge."
“This suggests traders are positioning defensively into strength while the market consolidates.”
Bearish BTC Price Predictions Persist
Market participants already holding bearish outlooks reinforced their existing warnings.
Trader Roman, expressing concern over a lack of trading volume even at all-time highs, suggested that the situation for Bitcoin could "get ugly fast" if it falls below $107,000.
Roman shared with his X followers regarding the weekly chart, "So far we’ve held but I wanted to show that it’s not just a horizontal support, it’s a diagonal support for a near year and a half long uptrend."
Fellow trader Daan Crypto Trades concurred, noting that the volume within the current price range was "pretty thin."
He wrote on the day, "The $111K level is what matters in the short term. If price can break and hold above that point, we can start looking for higher."
“It's good that the $107K level held during all this weakness also from stocks yesterday. But that is a key support to hold going forward.”
