Bitcoin’s recovery from last week’s lows has crushed the traders who bet against it.
Short sellers, who profit when prices fall, lost $504 million over the 24 hours to Monday morning, the most in a single day since late April, according to CoinGlass. Bets on rising prices lost just $151 million by comparison.
Total liquidations across crypto reached about $655 million and hit more than 104,000 traders. Bitcoin positions accounted for $315 million and ether for $201 million. The single biggest forced closure was a $12.3 million bitcoin futures position on the exchange OKX.
A liquidation is when an exchange automatically closes a leveraged bet that has moved too far against the trader.
The squeeze caps a volatile stretch 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 unwind in artificial-intelligence stocks and a record run of outflows from spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
Many traders piled into shorts near the lows, then got caught when bitcoin rebounded to a high near $63,800 on Sunday, according to CoinDesk data.
The bounce lost some steam on Monday. Renewed strikes between Iran and Israel sent oil up more than 3% and Asian stocks sharply lower, with South Korea’s KOSPI falling almost 7%. President Donald Trump urged Israel not to retaliate further. Bitcoin slipped back to around $62,900, still well above last week’s floor.
Bitcoin reached as high as $63,700 on Monday morning before retreating, according to CoinDesk data, with volatility likely to stay high ahead of U.S. inflation figures and a wave of major IPOs including SpaceX.