Bitcoin ( BTC ) spooked the market into the final week of September with a return to $112,000.
Bitcoin price action left much to be desired as traders forecast a retest of support closer to $100,000 next.
The dip liquidated over $1 billion of crypto longs in the largest single liquidation event of the year.
The Federal Reserve and Chair Jerome Powell are still on traders’ radar with fresh inflation data due.
Promises of a major announcement regarding Bitcoin from the US political establishment start circulating online.
Profitability data follows previous bull markets as “pre-euphoria” hints at an upcoming bull market top.
Bitcoin price divides traders on support test
Bitcoin was already giving traders a run for their money as the last full week of September began.
After a flat weekend , BTC price action flipped volatile with a snap dive to $112,000, data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed.
Traders were split on the significance of the move. Some warned of further losses, while others eyed a rebound to new local highs after a downside fakeout.
“Key level being retested - after reclaiming it at the start of the month,” trader Jelle reacted in a post on X.
“Hold the higher low here, and $BTC likely pushes for $120,000 next.”
Jelle described the support retest at $112,000 as “very clean” while demanding a return to $116,000.
Very clean retest for #Bitcoin so far.
— Jelle (@CryptoJelleNL) September 22, 2025
Want to see price back in the $116k region ASAP - reclaiming $118k remains the key objective.
Until then, no reason to panic while Bitcoin moves around in the same range. pic.twitter.com/W4S9qj7H5K
Among those seeing the dip as the start of a broader correction was fellow trader Captain Faibik.
“I already warned back in August that buyers would get trapped & exactly that happened. Late buyers got trapped, & since then #Bitcoin has dropped -13%,” part of an X post stated .
“From here, I’m expecting another bearish leg that could drag BTC down toward the $100k zone.”
An accompanying chart showed a breakdown of a rising wedge structure on the BTC/USD daily chart.
Crypto commentator WhalePanda remained dismayed at BTC price weakness in the face of both gold and US stock markets hitting fresh all-time highs last week.
“This last week we had $890 million of net inflows from ETFs and Saylor bought more,” he said , referring to the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds and business intelligence company Strategy’s Bitcoin treasury.
“Bitcoin is flat on the weekly, with a rate cut, and all other assets, stock indexes, gold, etc, closing a very green week. Almost seems like there are more than 21 million BTC in circulation.”
Liquidations set a bearish 2025 record
It may have bottomed out at $112,000 after reaching “only” 2.8%, but the overnight dip on BTC/USD took a large toll on traders.
Leverage was in the spotlight Monday as about $3,000 of BTC price downside delivered over $1 billion in crypto liquidations.
Data from monitoring resource CoinGlass put the liquidation figure at $1.7 billion in 24 hours at the time of writing, with longs making up $1.62 billion.
“The biggest long liquidation so far this year,” CoinGlass confirmed to X followers.
Onchain analytics platform Glassnode revealed that longs were especially vulnerable in the $113,000 area.
$BTC saw over $100M in long liquidations as price dropped below $115k, triggering clustered liquidation levels.
— glassnode (@glassnode) September 22, 2025
Heatmap data highlights concentrations around $113k–$114k, showing where leverage was most vulnerable.
pic.twitter.com/fCwAHB1nRg
Reacting, trader Daan Crypto Trades noted that a chunk of open interest worth $2 billion had been erased as a result.
“A big wipe out across the board. Now we wait and look for strength within the chaos,” he concluded .
Looking ahead, some market participants see conditions worsening before a market recovery.
Among them is Crypto investor and entrepreneur Ted Pillows, who warned that BTC price would target a large block of bid liquidity before the move.
“$BTC has over $2,000,000,000 in long liquidations between the $106,000 and $108,000 level,” he predicted .
“A sweep of this level seems highly likely in the coming weeks before any big upward move.”
Markets eye Fed’s Powell in PCE week
The Federal Reserve’s “preferred” inflation gauge is due for release again this week as markets bet on fresh interest-rate cuts.
The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index print for August will round off several days of insight from Fed officials.
This includes a speech on the economic outlook by Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce 2025 Economic Outlook Luncheon in Warwick, Rhode Island.
After the Fed cut rates for the first time in 2025 last week, markets will be focused on further cues from Powell over future policy trajectory, with risk assets hoping for a more dovish tone.
The latest data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool shows that expectations for the Fed’s Oct. 29 meeting firmly point toward another 0.25% reduction.
In the latest edition of its regular newsletter, The Market Mosaic , however, trading resource Mosaic Asset Company warned that such a result is anything but certain.
“Updated projections from the Fed points to a couple more rounds of rate cuts before the year is out. But those projections are far from unanimous,” it wrote.
“Of the 19 officials providing forecasts, seven saw no need to cut rates further. The dual threat of rising inflation along with recent weakening in labor market data are dividing central banks officials.”
The stand-off between inflation and weak labor-market data makes this week’s initial jobless claims especially important, including for traders eyeing snap volatility.
Bitcoin tipped for ”massive political news”
Rumors of a major US political announcement this week with implications for Bitcoin and altcoins are under scrutiny as BTC price suffers.
In what some suggest is classic market frontrunning, crypto markets are falling after reports of “massive political news” began circulating on social media.
The exact nature of the announcement is unknown, but in an X post on Sunday, Dennis Porter, CEO and co-founder of digital asset policy lobby Satoshi Fund, did not mince his words.
The move, due Tuesday, he claimed, would “reshape the trajectory of Bitcoin politics.”
Crypto has become sensitive to promises from US political circles in 2025 thanks to the initial buzz — and frustration — over the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The idea that the US government would purchase a giant tranche of BTC initially gained significant traction, but successive announcements by the Trump administration failed to enact the policy .
As Cointelegraph continues to report , however, the idea remains far from forgotten.
“I still think there’s a strong chance the US government will announce this year that it has formed the strategic Bitcoin reserve (SBR) and is formally holding BTC as a strategic asset,” Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at exchange Galaxy Digital, wrote on X earlier this month.
Thorn argued that the market had “underpriced” the likelihood of the SBR becoming reality.
Last week, US lawmakers met with crypto market executives, including Strategy’s Michael Saylor, with the SBR reportedly under discussion .
Profit data hints bull market top is near
Zooming out from short-term price action, new research concludes that the market is now in a state of “pre-euphoria.”
In one of its latest Quicktake blog posts, onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant reported a key signal printed by the market value to realized value (MVRV) metric.
MVRV compares Bitcoin’s market cap to the value of the supply when it last moved. The resulting ratio gives an insight into whether the market is overvalued or undervalued at a given price point.
CryptoQuant used the 30-day rolling difference between MVRV values for coins belonging to two Bitcoin investor cohorts: long-term (LTH) and short-term holders (STH).
LTH-MVRV is diverging from the STH equivalent, reflecting the increasing profitability of coins being held for six months or longer. Contributor Crazzyblockk calls this “pre-euphoria.”
“This phase has historically served as the direct precursor to the final, parabolic price surge of each major bull cycle,” they said.
An accompanying chart shows that such a divergence accompanied each Bitcoin cycle top.
“The current market is mirroring this historical behavior. We have been progressing through a healthy ’Pre-Euphoria’ stage since the 2022 bottom, building a strong foundation for a major move,” the blog post continued.
“Crucially, while the MVRV difference is in a clear uptrend, it has not yet reached the extreme levels characteristic of past market tops. This indicates that significant upside potential remains and the cycle's peak is still ahead.”
