Shorts wrecked from $539M worth of liquidations as Bitcoin reaches new ATH

In the past 24 hours, the crypto derivatives market saw $539 million in liquidations, with an overwhelming $469.87 million of that coming from short positions.

This wipeout came as Bitcoin reached a new ATH of $111,936 on Binance, before settling slightly lower at $111,230, a 2.33% increase from the day’s opening at $108,693.

Bitcoin’s upward move progressed steadily throughout the day, with only minor retracements. BTC’s intraday low was $108,477, making the rally relatively smooth and catching many traders off guard, particularly those betting on the downside.

The liquidations were heavily skewed. Shorts represented nearly 88% of the total liquidations, reflecting a heavily lopsided positioning among traders. On exchanges like HTX, Gate, and Hyperliquid, more than 90% of all positions liquidated were shorts, revealing an aggressive build-up in bearish bets just before Bitcoin’s breakout.

HTX saw the largest single liquidation of the day, a $51.56 million BTC-USDT short. Binance and Bybit followed closely behind in total notional wiped out, each seeing well over $100 million in combined long and short liquidations. Still, the overwhelming volume came from bears.

The impact wasn’t limited to Bitcoin. Ethereum saw $156.492 million in liquidations, and assets like XRP and SOL were also caught in the move, showing that the rally had broad participation across large-cap altcoins. Overall, data from CoinGlass showed more than 118,800 traders were liquidated.

Long-side losses were relatively modest. Only $68.92 million in longs was liquidated, mainly due to smaller corrections earlier in the day and tight stop placements.