Bitcoin Climbs Higher as $1.2 Billion in Shorts Liquidated

Bitcoin extended its rally on Friday, punishing traders who had bet against it and wiping out more than a billion dollars in bearish positions.

The largest cryptocurrency changed hands around $77,137, up 7.9% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data, after touching an intraday high of $79,320. The move capped a strong week that left Bitcoin up 23.2% over seven days, even as it remained down roughly 31.8% from a year ago.

The surge steamrolled leveraged short sellers. CoinGlass data showed about $1.5 billion in total crypto liquidations over the past 24 hours across 178,777 traders, with short positions accounting for roughly $1.21 billion of that sum.

Bitcoin alone drove about $17.25 million in liquidations on the one-hour heatmap, and the single largest liquidation order in the last day was a $23.59 million BTC position wiped out on Hyperliquid. The dynamic is a textbook short squeeze, in which rising prices force bearish traders to buy back their positions, adding fuel that pushes prices even higher.

The rebound follows a bruising stretch for the market. Bitcoin surged toward a recent high earlier this week in a run that torched some $3 billion in shorts, and analysts have been divided on whether the momentum can hold.