Bitcoin traded at $84,700 on Monday, closing in on $85,000 after starting the European session near $82,000, CoinDesk data show.
Traders betting against the move are being forced out. Just over $300 million of the roughly $313 million in crypto positions liquidated in the past hour belonged to short sellers, according to CoinGlass, or about 96% of the total.
A short position profits when a price falls. Traders who use borrowed money to take one have to put up collateral, and when the price rises far enough that the collateral no longer covers the loss, the exchange closes the position by buying the asset back. That buying pushes the price higher still, which forces out the next tier of shorts.
Bitcoin accounted for about $226 million of the hour’s total and ether nearly $59 million. Over 24 hours the tally reaches just above $710 million across nearly 135,000 traders, with the largest single liquidation a $11 million bitcoin position on Binance.
The squeeze is tightening rather than exhausting itself. Shorts made up 86% of liquidations over the full 24 hours and 96% in the past hour alone, which means the forced buying is arriving faster now than it did earlier in the day.
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