Short Traders Decimated As Bitcoin Barrels Past $43,000

Bitcoin has surprised the market with its recent surge. The digital asset which has been struggling below $40,000 for the past week made a break for it with an incredible rally that saw its peak above $44,000. It took the market by surprise and no doubt the traders as liquidations have been the order of the day. Short traders have gotten the short end of the stick as they see hundreds of millions liquidated in the past day.

Bitcoin Liquidations Run Amok

Short traders have been dominating the market for a while now given that the value for the cryptocurrency has been trending low. This was made worse by the Ukraine-Russia crisis. Bitcoin had managed to hold its ground around the $36K-$38K level without slipping too low. Monday would however prove to be a deviation from the norm as the recovery took the market by surprise.

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On Monday, bitcoin had rallied past $44,000 in what can be described as a sharp ascent. Happening over a matter of minutes, short traders were caught unawares by this movement. As such, millions of dollars in short positions were liquidated and $40K price walls across exchanges were all brought down.

BTC on another recovery trend | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

In total, over $100 million worth of bitcoin positions has been liquidated in the last 24 hours. The last 12 hours account for about 50% of this volume as the price continues to maintain upwards momentum. In total, there has been $147 million worth of BTC liquidations in the past 24 hours. Shorts account for the majority of this figure, although there have been millions in long liquidations, however to a lesser degree.

Altcoins Not Left Out

Not only has bitcoin recorded large liquidations over the last day, but altcoins have also recorded large liquidation volumes in the same time period.  Naturally, bitcoin has suffered the majority of liquidations but that is expected as it is the most valuable asset in the space. However, this does not mean that altcoins have dodged the onslaught as they have also recorded over $100 million in liquidations.

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Ethereum leads altcoins in liquidations as $58 million has been recorded over the past day. Same as Bitcoin, shorts have been the major contributors to this number as ETH has also recovered towards $3,000.

Crypto liquidations surpass $300 million in 24 hours | Source: Coinglass

An unlikely candidate, Luna, has come in third place in terms of liquidations. The native token of the Terra blockchain had seen $14 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours, over $6 million of which were recorded in the last 12 hours alone. The altcoin is up more than 20% in the last day, recording one of the largest increases in the recent rally.

Featured image from NationalWorld, charts from Coinglass and TradingView.com