Bitcoin’s rally from last week’s lows crushed traders who were betting against it.
Short sellers, who are taking advantage of falling prices, lost $504 million in the 24 hours to Monday morning, the largest amount in a single day since late April, according to CoinGlass. In comparison, bets on rising prices lost just $151 million.
Total crypto liquidations reached around $655 million and affected over 104,000 traders. Positions in Bitcoin were worth $315 million and in ether $201 million. The largest forced closure was a $12.3 million Bitcoin futures position on the OKX exchange.
A liquidation occurs when an exchange automatically closes a leveraged bet that has gone too far against the trader.
The squeeze ends a volatile period for the world’s largest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin fell nearly 14% last week and briefly traded below $60,000, dragged down by Strategy’s first Bitcoin sale since 2022, the unwinding of artificial intelligence stocks and a record series of outflows from Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds.
Many traders piled into short positions near the lows, then were caught out when bitcoin rebounded to a high near $63,800 on Sunday, according to CoinDesk data.
The rebound ran out of steam somewhat on Monday. Further strikes between Iran and Israel sent oil up more than 3% and Asian stocks fell sharply, with South Korea’s KOSPI falling almost 7%. President Donald Trump urged Israel not to retaliate again. Bitcoin returned to around $62,900, still well above last week’s low.
Bitcoin rose to $63,700 on Monday morning before retreating, according to CoinDesk data, with volatility likely to remain elevated ahead of U.S. inflation figures and a wave of major IPOs, including SpaceX.
