Liquidations Top $750M as BTC, ETH, and XRP Rocket to New Local Peaks

Bitcoin’s price ascent that began during the early Monday hours continued, with the asset climbing above $85,000 for the first time since late January.

Most altcoins have followed suit, leading to a cascade of liquidated positions, mostly from short traders.

It was difficult to imagine just five days ago what could happen now. Recall that last week went in the opposite direction from what the BTC bulls hoped for, with the US Senate voting against advancing the CLARITY Act and the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates for the first time in well over three years.

Both of those developments drove BTC south to around $75,000, which became its lowest price tag in three weeks. However, the cryptocurrency showed impressive resilience and rebounded to over $80,000 by Friday.

It climbed to almost $82,000 on Saturday when a fresh wave of negative news, this time on the Middle East war front as well as the Ukraine-Russia conflict, pushed it down to $80,300.

The bulls were more persistent once again, helping the asset avoid another dip below $80,000. Moreover, bitcoin rocketed once again on Monday, first to $84,000 and then to a new multi-month peak at over $85,000 minutes ago, where it was finally stopped, at least for now. This meant that BTC had added $10,000 since the Wednesday low of $75,000.

The altcoins have followed suit, with ETH reclaiming the $2,700 level after a notable 6% daily increase. XRP has rocketed by over 7%, and it trades close to the next key resistance on its path to recovery at $1.50.

The total value of liquidated positions is on the rise again, exceeding $750 million on a daily scale. Nearly $450 million came in the past four hours alone.

Naturally, shorts are responsible for the lion’s share, with $650 million in such positions wrecked in the past 24 hours. The number of wiped-out traders is above 136,000, according to CoinGlass data.