Live updates: Bitcoin’s round trip to $85,000 burns traders on both sides

Bitcoin squeezed short sellers on its way to nearly $85,000 late Wednesday, then wiped out bullish bets on the way back down to about $81,800. That’s a $3,000 round trip in under a day, and it left bitcoin down about 2% over 24 hours.

The damage shows up in liquidations, which are positions an exchange forcibly closes when a trader using borrowed money can’t cover their losses. About $431 million was liquidated over 24 hours, according to CoinGlass.

Roughly $173 million of that hit short sellers during the climb, and over the past 12 hours bullish bets made up $210 million of the $222 million wiped out. The biggest single hit was an $11.8 million bitcoin long on Binance, closed near $83,500.

HYPE fell 4.5% to about $78, DOGE lost nearly 4% and SOL dropped 3%. Ether slipped 2% to just under $2,400. XMR went the other way, jumping 11% to about $650, according to CoinDesk data.

The slide takes bitcoin below $82,500, a level some market watchers warn could open a path toward $70,000 if it breaks.

Tech gave it no help. Nasdaq 100 futures fell 1.1% after Tesla cut its spending forecast and Lam Research issued a weak outlook.