Bitcoin jumped 3% to $69,120 on Monday as traders returned from the Easter weekend in a surge of optimism around a potential ceasefire in Iran, pushing the largest cryptocurrency to its highest level in more than a week and squeezing $196 million in short positions over the past 24 hours.
Ether led a rally among major tokens with a 3.7% gain to $2,130, its strongest daily move in the past week. SOL rose 2% to $82, XRP added 2.2% to $1.34 and dogecoin climbed 1.7% to $0.093. The broad rally pushed the total crypto market cap back above $2.5 trillion.
The catalyst was a report from Axios that the United States, Iran and a group of regional mediators are discussing the terms of a possible 45-day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent end to the six-week-old conflict.
Reports that more ships had passed through the Strait of Hormuz added to the relief, even as Trump issued increasingly aggressive threats to destroy Iranian power plants starting Tuesday.
Liquidation data tells the story of how the market positioned itself heading into the weekend.
Of the $273.8 million in total 24-hour liquidations among 81,819 traders, shorts accounted for $196.7 million to longs’ $77.1 million, a nearly 3-to-1 ratio that indicated traders were strongly positioned for further decline after last week’s collapse in sentiment. The largest liquidation was a $10.17 million ETH-USDT short sale on Binance.
Bitcoin’s 24-hour range extended from $66,634 to $69,350, a swing of $2,700 that captured the worst of the short positioning.
The move came after Santiment data over the weekend showed social media sentiment had reached its most bearish level since the start of the war, with five negative posts to four positive. As is often the case in cryptocurrencies, the most bearish sentiment of the cycle produced the sharpest rebound.
The move reclaims the top of Bitcoin’s five-week war range, but does not break it. The $65,000-$73,000 channel that has contained every rally and sell-off since the conflict began remains intact.
The resistance levels at $71,500 and $81,200, corresponding to the lower band and on-chain trader price indicators as tracked in a CoinDesk report, are the next significant tests if ceasefire momentum holds.
Whether this gathering has more substance than the last three depends entirely on whether the 45-day ceasefire materializes or some other title is rolled back within 48 hours.
