Bitcoin’s price closes in on $70K as $1.44 billion short squeeze shakes crypto market

Bitcoin and Ethereum made big gains on Wednesday, wrong-footing traders who had bet that prices would continue to fall.

On another note, with Bitcoin recently nearing $70,000 and Ethereum peaking over $2,100, the market started gathering pace, meaning, people betting against these assets lost an estimated $1.44 billion!

Bitcoin rally catches traders off guard

Bitcoin started the day near $64,681 before climbing as high as $69,698, later trading around $68,509, as it went up almost 6%.

The move was swift, which caused many traders to be hit by a huge loss they were probably not expecting. The biggest liquidation on CoinGlass in just about four hours totalled $1.52 billion, where about $1.40 billion was short positions and therefore a win for the long positions.

Many traders had placed bets on prices falling, but once Bitcoin started seeing a price increase instead, exchanges automatically closed positions that could no longer cover their losses.

Bitcoin traders suffered the biggest hit, as data showed that around $893 million in BTC positions were liquidated over 24 hours, including $861 million from shorts.

More than $531 million in Bitcoin shorts disappeared in just one hour.

Ethereum joins the rebound