Bitcoin Surges Past $85K After Wipeout of $648M Shorts

Bitcoin (BTC) broke through key resistance levels after a wave of short liquidations accelerated its strongest advance since January. The cryptocurrency surged to over $85,000 as traders scrambled to cover their positions.

Data from CryptoSlate showed BTC gained more than 5% in the past 24 hours to reach $85,193, extending its advance over the past 35 days to about 29%. This rally caught bearish traders heavily exposed, with CoinGlass data showing about $750.5 million of leveraged crypto positions liquidated over the past 24 hours.

Of this total, more than $648 million, or roughly 86%, came from shorts. Bitcoin accounted for roughly $360 million of these liquidations, while Ethereum contributed nearly $171 million. The largest single liquidation was an $11.29 million BTC-USDT position on Binance.