Attention contract traders. Yesterday was a broad rally, but today (January 15th), the entire battlefield has shifted to derivatives. There is a key price level in the market that can determine whether billions of dollars in positions live or die, and a short squeeze drama orchestrated by policy and market structure is brewing.

Where is the core battlefield? It’s at the short liquidation storm and that critical price level.

The market is now being driven by leverage liquidations. As a contract trader, compared to simply watching the ups and downs, it’s more important to focus on the following points. In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin has surged to $96,000, with over $375 million in positions liquidated, most of which are shorts. But that’s not the worst part. According to Coinglass data, once Bitcoin’s price breaks above $97,100, over $1 billion worth of short positions will face liquidation risk. In other words, the $97,100 level is the red line and the trigger point for today’s market.

What does this mean? The market structure has become extremely fragile. Any buy order that pushes the price toward $97,100 can trigger a chain reaction of automatic short liquidations. When buy orders appear, the price is pushed higher, which in turn triggers more automatic liquidations. Shorts are squeezed out, the price rises again, and more shorts are squeezed out—a positive feedback loop. This presents both high risk and high certainty trading opportunities.

The driving force behind this rally has continued from yesterday into today, and now the policy level has entered a critical stage.