Bitcoin reclaims $87,000 as short sellers get wiped out

Bitcoin blew past $87,000, reaching its highest price point since late January and catching an entire class of short sellers off guard in the process.

The move represented a roughly 5-6% jump from a prior close around $81,000-$81,200, fueled by a cascade of forced liquidations that turned a modest rally into something significantly more violent.

More than $300 million in short positions were liquidated in a single hour during the surge. Over the full 24-hour window, total liquidations across the crypto market stretched somewhere between $576 million and $800 million.

Bitcoin reached intraday highs near $86,300-$86,344 before continuing to climb through the $87,000 level. The move also pushed BTC back above the average cost basis for US spot Bitcoin ETF holders, previously sitting around $82,225. That's a meaningful psychological threshold: it means the average ETF buyer is back in profit for the first time since January.

The rally didn't happen in a vacuum. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $435 million in net inflows on the Friday before the surge, signaling that institutional appetite was already building before prices spiked.

The timing also coincided with a friendlier macro backdrop. WTI crude oil prices dipped to around $91-$92 per barrel, driven by improving US-Iran diplomatic developments. Equities caught the same tailwind, with the Nasdaq rising approximately 1-2% during the same period.