How to short & long Bitcoin - In-depth guide to trading Bitcoin in 2025

Whether you do not believe in Bitcoin or you are a seasoned trader looking to profit from price movements in either direction this article will give you some options on how to short and long Bitcoin.

Ready? Let’s get started.

Short selling Bitcoin (or shorting Bitcoin) is a trading strategy that aims to profit from price going down. Every trader should be familiar with shorting as it allows you to profit from price declines as opposed to just profiting from the value of Bitcoin going up.

Short selling Bitcoin means selling Bitcoins with the intention of buying Bitcoins back at a lower price, thus profiting from the price difference between selling point and the buyback point.

You sold 1 Bitcoin at the price of $10,000.

The price of Bitcoin now dropped to 9,500$ and you have $10,000 in cash on your trading account.

Now you can re-buy your Bitcoins for 9,500$ and end up with 1.052 Bitcoins and essentially making $500 in one trade while the price went down.

Longing Bitcoin (or simply bitcoin long) means buying Bitcoin with the expectation of the price of Bitcoin rising in the future. Essentially longing Bitcoin means buying Bitcoin at the current time to sell them at a higher price in the future.

You bought 1 Bitcoin at a price of $8,000.

The price of Bitcoin now rose to $10,000 while you still have your 1 Bitcoin.

You can now sell your 1 Bitcoin for $10,000 and you earned $2,000 in the process.

In order to short and long Bitcoin, you must have an account in one of the Bitcoin exchanges. Look at the next paragraph to find a suitable Bitcoin exchange for you.

Longing Bitcoin can be as simple as buying Bitcoin on one of the exchanges and holding it until the value rises - then selling. More advanced traders use margin (or leverage) trading exchanges where they put up collateral (usually their Bitcoins) in order to borrow money that they can use to buy Bitcoins with. Using margin trading platforms can be extremely profitable and at the same time extremely risky - as you can lose all of your collateral.

Short selling Bitcoin can be done by temporarily selling the Bitcoins that you own and buying them back at a lower price. More advanced traders use margin (or leverage) trading exchanges where they can sell loaned Bitcoins with a promise of returning the loaned Bitcoins. Using a margin trading exchange for shorting is almost a must - this way you will not have to sell your Bitcoins and can still profit from a declining Bitcoin market.

In the next paragraph, I will give you an overview of the most popular exchanges where you can both long and short Bitcoin.

Bybit is one of the newer (founded in March 2018) margin trading platforms around. Bybit claims to have around 1 million users on their trading platform. Liquidity on Bybit is sufficient for all traders trading with under $1 million - at least on BTC/USD trading pair. Bybit allows you to use up to 100x leverage, which is insane, but you do not have to use that much leverage. It is best to start with either 1x or 2x leverage at most.

Bybit has 4 different trading pairs available - BTC / USD, ETH / USD, EOS / USD and XRP / USD. In order to trade on Bybit you have to deposit the base currency of the trading pair you want to trade with (BTC / ETH / EOS / XRP).

Bybit has an excellent, easy to use, user interface suitable for both beginner and more advanced traders. Bybit’s customer support is also excellent - 24/7 live support.

Bybit takes 0.075% fee on taker volume (market orders) and pays you a 0.025% rebate for maker volume (limit orders). So you can actually earn money when using limit orders on Bybit.

Bybit is actually our favourite Bitcoin exchange and we definitely recommend anyone to try it out.

Bitmex is one of the first margin trading exchanges for cryptocurrencies. Similarly to Bybit, Bitmex allows you to use up to 100x leverage, which we do not recommend as there is a high chance you will lose all of your collateral.

Bitmex has more trading pairs than Bybit - BTC/USD, ETH/USD, ETH/BTC, BCH/BTC, LTC/BTC, EOS/BTC, TRX/BTC, ADA/BTC and XRP/BTC. You can only use Bitcoin as collateral on Bitmex, as opposed to Bybit where you had to deposit the base currency of the trading pair you wish to trade. Bitmex’s trading fees are the same as Bybit’s trading fees - 0.075% for market orders and they pay out 0.025% if you are using limit orders.

Bitmex’s customer support, user interface and the overall trading experience is not great. They have leaked their customer information in the past and they have also experienced many weird “scam wicks” that might liquidate or wipe out your positions. For that reason, we cannot really recommend using Bitmex, but as it is one of the oldest and probably one of the trustworthiest margin exchanges around, it is definitely worth checking out.

Deribit is a great alternative if you do not like Bitmex and Bybit. In addition to derivatives, Deribit also offers options trading with leverage.

Although Deribit has less trading pairs (BTC/USD & ETH/USD) than both Bybit and Bitmex, the ability to trade options (puts & calls) can be tempting for more seasoned traders. Deribit’s trading fees are the same as Bybit’s and Bitmex’s trading fees - 0.075% for market orders and they pay out 0.025% if you are using limit orders.

Deribit’s user interface is beautiful looking and easy to use. Their customer support is very responsive and helpful. The only downside of Deribit is that it lacks liquidity for traders with large volume.

Binance is another very popular exchange and one of the exchanges with most spot trading volume on the cryptocurrency market. What makes Binance attractive is the fact they have over 1,000 trading pairs available.

Recently Binance introduced margin trading feature as well - although it is not supported on all the trading pairs yet, it is definitely worth checking out. Binance’s trading fees start out at 0.10% for both limit and market orders. You can lower the fees by holding some of their own cryptocurrency (BNB) to pay for the fees or by trading larger volumes.

Binance is known to have good customer support along with a reliable trading engine. They have suffered from hacks and leaks in the past but they have always made sure that customer funds are covered.

By now you hopefully have learned what shorting and longing Bitcoin means and how to do it yourself. Everyone that wants to trade bitcoin successfully must learn and use the simple concept of shorting Bitcoin.

Remember - the sooner you get started the better.