Why does the price have to jump significantly in the next week? Looking at a daily chart, it seems to me that we are indeed at a crossroads. (The weekly chart is uglier for bulls) I don't see a trend reversal yet, though.
Earlier this week the shorts completely halved on Bitfinex... they've since regained some of their luster but are still well short of where we were when we were touching 525. During the same period of time, the longs have increased. Using this as a measure of market sentiment, people seem to be willing to pony up money towards the upside. Additionally, China has been running hot when, previously, they were the source of the dumping activity. Thirdly, the whole GABI thing is more money in the pot (and if it doesn't do something then they have nothing to show investors... thus, I believe that we have an artificially constrained market right now). Finally, the whole Ethereum dumping seems to have hit an end.
There are probably more reasons cutting in both directions, but I think we are about to get some truly unrestrained action in the next week and I think the prices now, at least in the short-term, are a steal.
Regarding the bolded part, I think you're doing it wrong. Yes, shorts are still down ~2500 from the recent peak. That means there are much less shorts to squeeze. Meanwhile, yes, longs have increased somewhat -- and if you look at the slope, it is completely diverging from price. These longs are already out of position, so they are more likely to be squeezed than if they weren't underwater. Remember, most traders lose.
China is not "running hot". They've been staying within a few dollars of Bitfinex. The last $20 rally was extremely tired -- very little momentum. Couldn't make new highs. And the spike off 3105 this afternoon clearly failed miserably. With off-exchange supply and demand so invisible, and only being able to glean what I can of that from exchange movements, I'm not sure what to make of GABI yet. I also don't think Ethereum was a driving factor for anything in the BTC/fiat markets.
To be fair, though, I'm looking mostly for a reversal of the daily trend. If we can't break above $530s, that seems very unlikely.
This is all fair. The rally was lame and worries me. There are fewer shorts to squeeze.
However, while some of the longs may be out of position, most of them really shouldn't be. We squeezed everybody there was to squeeze going into the mid-400s and, since then, about $3 million in new longs have emerged which should be well positioned relative to the current value. That said, who knows how much the last dip cut into traders' willingness to lever up, again.
I am hoping that GABI might be a sufficient nudge to bring the panic buyers in... we'll see... in the long run I think Wall Street will screw us all, but short-term I see it as a positive. I see up as the more likely route, flat as the second most likely, and down 20+ as possible, but becoming less likely.