Bitcoin’s latest rally has liquidated over $248 million in leveraged positions within a 24-hour span, with short sellers bearing the brunt of the damage.

Bitcoin moved from $102,135 at its low during the day to a high of $108,010, then settled at $106,769, ending the day with a 2.83% increase. This unexpected surge caught more than 90,000 traders off guard, resulting in a major wave of withdrawals from major trading platforms.

Binance, Bybit Lead as Bitcoin Liquidations Surge

Most liquidations were seen among short positions of $132.30 million, more than double the $115.81 million from long positions. During the peak hours before the liquidation count began, $114.19 million of capital from positions was erased, representing roughly half of what was liquidated that day.

Data provided by CoinGlass shows that the biggest single liquidation occurred when a $1.97 million BTCUSDT trade was placed on Bybit. Leading the list was Binance, responsible for $82.61 million in liquidations, with over half being from bets against market growth.

Bitcoin

Coming in second, Bybit earned $78.53 million and the data indicates that a majority of traders took long positions. Only $15.94 million of liquidations occurred on OKX and 59.17% were from people shorting.

There seems to be a sense among traders that they underestimated how strong the market remains. Many failed efforts to reach new all-time highs led to more negative thoughts about Bitcoin, but its quick climb above $102K turned that trend around.

“It appears that the market is taking a healthy step back,” said CryptoQuant’s analysts. Maintaining short bets is resulting in investors being forced to leave their leveraged positions as Bitcoin finds strength just under its new highs.

Bitcoin

According to analysts, if Bitcoin stabilizes above $106,000 and derivatives markets are steady, the price could continue to rise. However, what we have seen so far is that the rally has shown just how risky it is to be overleveraged when placing bets against Bitcoin’s rise.