Trading Moment: Strong buying pressure on Bitcoin ahead of the STRC ex-dividend date; will BTC first reach 83,000 or fall back to 76,000?

Daily market data review and trend analysis, produced by PANews.

Macro Market

On Thursday, the S&P 500 rose 0.77%, breaking the 7,500 mark for the first time in history ; the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.88%, continuing to set new record closing highs ; and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.75%, regaining the 50,000 mark .

US retail sales data for April confirmed the resilience of consumer spending, but rising inflation and soaring long-term Treasury yields are creating a severe double whammy. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.5%, and the 30-year Treasury yield even broke through the 5% mark at one point, both reaching new highs in nearly a year. Mona Mahajan, head of investment strategy at Edward Jones, said the rationale for interest rate cuts is becoming increasingly weak, and incoming Fed Chair-designate Warsh will have to remain patient. Adam Turnquist of LPL Financial warned that the continued rise in long-term interest rates will pose a significant headwind for the valuation of growth stocks.

Federal Reserve Governor Mirkojic has formally submitted his resignation, planning to leave before or when new Chairman Warsh takes office. In his resignation letter, he once again warned that current interest rates may be too high , arguing that trends such as slowing population growth and deregulation will reduce inflation on their own.

South Korea's KOSPI index briefly broke through 8,000 points in early trading before quickly falling back, dropping more than 6% at one point . KOSPI 200 futures triggered a circuit breaker after falling by 5%. Japan's 5-year government bond yield hit a record high of 1.97%, while the 10-year yield rose to 2.7%. Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama reassured the market that rising yields were a global trend.

In the precious metals market, silver futures plummeted by over 6% at one point due to the combined impact of a stronger dollar, profit-taking, and India's sudden increase in import tariffs on gold and silver. UBS strategists Wayne Gordon and Dominic Schnider subsequently lowered their silver forecasts, noting weakening investment and industrial demand, and predicting that silver prices will fall back to $85 by the end of the second quarter of 2026.

AI and the Stock Market

Technology stocks performed strongly, boosted by expectations of deeper cooperation between tech giants and China. Nvidia's stock price surged 4.39% , pushing its market capitalization above $5.71 trillion, a new all-time high. The U.S. Department of Commerce has approved the sale of H200 chips to 10 Chinese companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and JD.com (limited to 75,000 chips per company), although actual deliveries remain stalled.

Meanwhile, Cisco, a long-established tech giant, saw its stock price surge 13.4% to a record high after fully shifting its focus to AI and laying off 4,000 employees. Cerebras Systems, a new AI chip manufacturer, was even more enthusiastically received by investors on its first day of trading, with its stock price soaring 68.2%. Broadcom rose 5.52%, and TSMC rose 4.48%.

Bitcoin price

As the U.S. Senate Banking Committee advanced the CLARITY bill with a 15-9 vote, coupled with the strong performance of U.S. tech stocks, Bitcoin quickly shrugged off the impact of inflation data, briefly touching a high of $82,000 before falling back to fluctuate around $80,500.

In the options market, a staggering $2.01 billion worth of BTC options will be settled today, with the biggest resistance level at $80,000. Call options still dominate. Meanwhile, Strategy's perpetual preferred stock, STRC, is considered a significant factor driving Bitcoin's mid-month surge. Vetle Lunde, Head of Research at K33, pointed out that STRC's ex-dividend date is fixed on the 15th of each month, attracting a large number of investors to buy before the ex-dividend date. Data shows that STRC trading volume surged to 15.61 million shares (worth $1.561 billion) on May 14th , possibly another important reason for Bitcoin's rise yesterday.

However, Glassnode data shows that Bitcoin has seen a net capital inflow of approximately $2.8 billion over the past 30 days. While the inflow continues, the pace is still slower than in previous bull markets. Meanwhile, nearly $2 billion in short-term Gamma option positions have accumulated around $82,000, forming a "Gamma trap" and posing potential volatility risks to the market. Investors should be wary of the possibility of a short-term market correction.

Bearish view

The core logic of the short sellers is that the high pressure of the macro interest rate environment, the continuous outflow of institutional funds, and the high realized losses on the blockchain suggest that the current rise is just a "bull trap" under the pressure of liquidity, and the market has most likely reached a local top.

BitBull: Institutions are selling on rallies. Although Bitcoin is holding above $80,000, "smart money" is exiting.
Killa: Order book depth is significantly high in the current price range, indicating a liquidity-driven "hunting" market structure. Once the S&P 500's parabolic trend stops, Bitcoin's momentum will also dry up, making blindly going long extremely risky. If it falls below $80,000, it may further retrace to the $74,000-$76,000 area.
Ardi: The structure of the bear market rally is becoming increasingly slow and flat. As long as prices do not break through previous lows, the bear market is not over, and time will be the biggest trap. The $74,000-$76,000 area is expected to be tested.
Kans: Bitcoin is at a decision point. If it fails to break through the $83,000 resistance zone, it could trigger a deep pullback to $74,000-$77,000 or $60,000, respectively.
Mizer: The technical rebound from $78,000 has ended. Huge buying failed to break through key resistance, and the current area is the top.
Glassnode: A large number of chips that are about to break even have accumulated around $86,900, forming a huge resistance level above.
Bitfinex/CoinDesk analysts: Daily realized losses remain as high as $479 million, and enterprise buyer purchases have dropped by 80%. On-chain recovery cannot be confirmed until losses fall to the $200 million range.

bullish view

The core logic of the bulls lies in the successful defense of key support levels, the excessive crowding of short positions, and the bullish divergence in technical patterns, which could trigger a violent short squeeze at any time, pushing prices to new highs.

Astronomer: Bitcoin has seen an excellent rebound in a key interest zone on the weekly chart, with short sellers accumulating heavily at the $81,000 level, providing a great opportunity for longs to establish positions. This rally is expected to go even higher.
Ali Charts: Bitcoin is testing the support line of the ascending channel that began on April 9 (around $79,000). If this bottom holds, the price could rebound to the top of the channel around $86,000.
Man of Bitcoin: The price reacted to the support zone and reversed upwards. A break above $82,750 is needed to confirm that the price is following a bullish roadmap.
Crypto Tony: As long as the support zone of $81,200-$81,300 holds, the next wave of upward movement will arrive.
Michaël van de Poppe: The market has successfully tested $79,000 and the 21-day moving average, and the trend continues upward. It is expected to test the high point and break through $90,000 in May/June.
Matter: The chart looks very bullish. Once the 82.3K area is broken, the shorts will be trapped, and the price will experience a sharp short squeeze towards the 85K area.
Seth: Short sellers were blindly accumulating positions, with as much as $3.57 billion in short liquidations waiting to be triggered at $83,000, and the market did indeed touch $82,000.
Daan Crypto Trades: $79,400 (previous April high) is an extremely crucial pivot point, and the market is currently holding steady at that level.
Sykodelic: If the 200EMA at $82,000 is broken and held, or if the weekly close is above $83,000, the structure will turn healthy, with a target of $95,000.
CrypNuevo: If the price holds above the range high, it will push towards the weekly 50EMA at $84,000-$85,000.

Market Dynamics

Hyperliquid recently received multiple positive developments. Coinbase and Circle have joined forces to announce the activation of AQAv2 on Hyperliquid using USDC. As a treasury deployer, Coinbase will allocate 90% of the platform's USDC reserves to HYPE, which, based on the current scale, will generate over $100 million in annual dividends, providing strong cash flow support for the platform.

In addition, 21Shares officially launched Hyperliquid spot ETF trading on May 12, with a cumulative net inflow of $7.12 million. Meanwhile, the Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF will be listed on the NYSE tonight. Venture capital giants a16z and No Limit Holdings have also quietly increased their holdings of HYPE, with a16z's affiliated wallet purchasing 1.64 million HYPE tokens in the past month, worth nearly $70 million.

Market sentiment is high, with Altcoin's Sherpa bullish on HYPE's future performance, predicting a potential price target of over $50. However, technical analyst Ali Charts warns that the TD Sequential indicator has shown a sell signal, potentially triggering a price pullback for HYPE to $36 or even $33.

Key data (as of 14:00 HKT, May 15)

(Data source: Coinank, Upbit, SoSoValue, CryptoBubbles)

Bitcoin ETF: +$131 million
Ethereum ETF: -$5.6511 million, marking the fourth consecutive day of net outflows.
SOL ETF: +$6.5063 million
XRP ETF: +$18,523,300
HYPE: +4.9 million USD
Fear of Greed Index: 43 (Neutral)
Upbit 24-hour trading volume rankings: XRP, BTC, ETH, DOGE, PIEVERSE
Sector Performance: DeFi sector led the gains with over 5%, while only AI sector declined.

24-hour liquidation data: A total of 82,780 people worldwide were liquidated, with a total liquidation amount of $279 million, including $72.21 million in BTC liquidations, $49.45 million in ETH liquidations, and $10.1 million in SOL liquidations.

Today's Outlook

The Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange this Friday.
Binance will launch several USDⓈ-M perpetual contracts related to US stocks and ETFs between May 15th and 18th.
Avant has postponed the TGE to mid-September, and points will cease accrual on May 15.
Dmail Network will be gradually shutting down starting May 15th; users need to export their emails before then.
UX Chain announces closure: liquidation begins on April 30, and operations cease completely on May 15.
Lattice, the blockchain gaming infrastructure team, announced a phased shutdown of its operations, with the Redstone network ceasing service on May 16.
May 15th is the ex-interest date for STRC each month.
Jerome Powell's term as Federal Reserve Chairman is ending, and Kevin Warsh is expected to succeed him.
Sei (SEI) will unlock approximately 55.56 million tokens, worth about $3.8 million, on May 15th.
Starknet (STRK) will unlock approximately 127 million tokens, worth about $6.8 million, on May 15th.
Connex (CONX) will unlock 1.32 million tokens, worth approximately $16.99 million, on May 15.
Arbitrum (ARB) will unlock 92.65 million tokens, worth approximately $11.54 million, on May 16.

The top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization with the largest gains today are: Billions Network up 31.9%, Hyperliquid up 18.4%, Unibase up 15.8%, XDC Network up 15.2%, and Flare up 10.4%.