Bitcoin’s recovery from last week’s lows has crushed traders who bet against it.
Short sellers, who profit when prices fall, lost $504 million in the 24 hours through Monday morning, the most in a single day since late April, according to CoinGlass. By comparison, bets on rising prices lost only $151 million.
Total cryptocurrency liquidations reached about $655 million and affected more than 104,000 traders. Bitcoin positions represented $315 million and ether positions represented $201 million. The largest forced closure was a $12.3 million bitcoin futures position on the OKX exchange.
A liquidation is when an exchange automatically closes a leveraged bet that has moved too far against the trader.
The restriction ends a volatile streak 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 decline in artificial intelligence stocks and a record streak of outflows from spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
Many traders piled into short positions near the lows, then got caught out when bitcoin rebounded to a high near $63,800 on Sunday, according to data from CoinDesk.
The rebound lost some steam on Monday. Fresh attacks 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 further. Bitcoin fell back to around $62,900, still well above last week’s bottom.
Bitcoin hit a high of $63,700 on Monday morning before retreating, according to data from CoinDesk, and volatility is likely to remain high ahead of US inflation numbers and a wave of major IPOs, including SpaceX.
