The cryptocurrency market experienced a sudden upward swing today, with some major bearish trades ending up being crushed.
Bitcoin (BTC), the flagship cryptocurrency, surged past the $69,000 level earlier today, CoinGecko data shows.
The uptick has triggered a wave of short liquidations that wiped out nearly $200 million in bearish positions.
According to the latest market data, Bitcoin is currently trading at $69,132. It is up a solid 3% over the past 24 hours.
The flagship cryptocurrency's bullish momentum lifted the broader digital asset market alongside it.
Ethereum (ETH) mirrored the upward sentiment, climbing 3.7% to reclaim the $2,130 evel.
Meanwhile, XRP also caught a piece of the rally, pushing up 2.2% to trade at $1.34.
The sudden price spike caught tens of thousands of over-leveraged derivatives traders completely off guard.
CoinGlass data reveals that a staggering 80,963 traders were liquidated over the past 24 hours. This has resulted in a total market wipeout of $273.53 million.
Over the last 24 hours, $196 million worth of short positions were liquidated, compared to just $76.89 million in longs.
The pain was particularly concentrated during a brutal 12-hour window, which accounted for $158.21 million of the total short liquidations as the market rallied.
Over a four-hour window, Binance recorded $6.23 million in total liquidations, with shorts making up nearly 70% of the losses.
On exchanges like Bitget, Bybit, and Gate, short liquidations made up over 86% of the volume during the 4-hour sprint. Hyperliquid was a notable outlier during this short timeframe, with long positions making up 82.6% of its $3.79 million in liquidations.
The biggest individual hit took place on Binance via an ETH-USDT trade. The unfortunate trader lost a massive $10.17 million in a single swoop.