Bitcoin Hits New All-Time High at $116k, Nearly $1B Shorts Get Liquidated: Markets Liveblog

Bitcoin just breached $116k after blowing past $113,800 on Thursday, setting a new all-time high. The oldest digital asset has been on a tear for the last several months — and has nearly doubled over the past year, climbing from $57,899 a year ago today.

CoinDesk analysts and industry experts are watching closely to see if bitcoin BTC$90,124.85 can rise to $120,000, or if this week's price action is just an ephemeral gasp. This liveblog will be updated regularly. Scroll down for the latest.

Krisztian Sandor, CoinDesk markets reporter (22:40 UTC):

Tough day for the shorts: Thursday's move higher in prices liquidated over $950 million in leveraged short trading positions across all assets on exchanges, the largest amount in a day this year, CoinGlass data shows. Shorts are bearish bets anticipating prices will decline.

Aoyon Ashraf, Head of Americas (22:28 UTC):

Bettors in the prediction market Kalshi are pricing in bitcoin hitting $141,000 by the end of this year. The forecasted BTC price is based on the price of recent trades that were put on the tape in the platform, according to Kalshi.

This isn't the first time the $140K price prediction showed up during today's ATH rally. Earlier, Gerry O'Shea, head of global market insights at Hashdex, said in a note:

"While the macro environment will continue to remain uncertain, we believe the bull market is far from over and new catalysts, including more institutional platforms allowing access to bitcoin, may help drive the price of BTC to $140,000 or higher this year."

Aoyon Ashraf, Nikhilesh De (22:05 UTC):

Michael Saylor now has $69 billion reason to celebrate:
Michael Saylor, the executive chairman of Strategy (MSTR), gloated in Thursday's price rise.

Strategy has accumulated 597,325 Bitcoin since 2020, when his company first started buying up bitcoin, almost acting as a de facto exchange-traded fund before such products were available to U.S. investors. At today's new all-time high prices, his holdings are worth $69.29 billion.

And as a reminder, here are the top public bitcoin treasury companies, according to BitcoinTreasuries.Net

Nikhilesh De, CoinDesk managing editor for Global Policy & Regulation (22:05 UTC):

The vibes on Thursday felt eerily similar to mid-December 2017, when bitcoin's price soared to just under $20,000 for the first time. The digital asset had gone on a tear in 2017, rising from just under $1,000 over the course of those 12 months. Of course, the broader environment is dramatically different in July 2025: Interest rates, the amount of capital invested into digital assets, the types of institutions involved, the regulatory interest and the sheer number of people in crypto are all different than eight years ago.

Aoyon Ashraf, Head of Americas (21:42 UTC):

Here is at least one industry observer calling for a potential $120K for bitcoin. Ryan Gorman, chief strategy officer at Uranium Digital, said:

"Bitcoin accumulation through companies deploying treasury strategies is continuing to pick up momentum across all sectors and geographic regions, and shows no sign of slowing down. This, coupled with President Trump's bullish Truth Social post earlier today, and the administration's declared Crypto Week next week in D.C., leads to a situation where buyers outnumber sellers and continues a virtuous cycle where higher prices beget more buys in anticipation of further positive news.

"Additionally, when looking at open options interest, positioning is rather bullish with calls outnumbering puts - the smart (institutional) money is expecting a further move to the upside. Where this rally extends to is anyone's guess, but, seasonally light trading volumes lead to less liquidity and the opportunity for prices to gap quickly to the upside. This is creating a perfect storm where it would not surprise me if we see Bitcoin hit $120,000 before the end of next week regardless of uncertainty around tariffs and their impact on the global economy."

Aoyon Ashraf, Head of Americas (21:20 UTC):

We are reopening the live blog to update for the new, fresh record for BTC. The price just hit $116,221 on Coinbase and is hitting new all-time highs above $116k on other exchanges. Just the wild 24-hour nature of crypto!

Krisztian Sandor, CoinDesk markets reporter (20:35 UTC):

The live blog will be wrapping up for today as the market seems to have calmed down for now. Bitcoin is trading around $113,400, while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed 0.1% and 0.3% higher, respectively. The U.S. dollar index (DXY) inched slightly higher to 97.6.

Aoyon Ashraf, Head of Americas (20:20 UTC):

Speaking of USD weakness and risk assets, let's quickly look at a story written by CoinDesk contributor Siamak Masnavi based on an analysis by Kobeissi Letter. This may partially explain why BTC hit a fresh high.

The Kobeissi Letter estimated that if the federal funds rate is cut by at least 3% (something that Trump suggested in his social media post), it could reduce U.S. interest costs by up to $2.5 trillion over five years, but warned that it would be unprecedented outside a recession.

They cautioned it could reignite inflation above 5%, sink the USD more than 10%, and send asset prices soaring, including gold to $5,000 and the S&P 500 past 7,000. The precious metal is currently trading around $3,324/oz, and SPX just closed at 6,280.47.

Adding to market volatility, rumors have emerged that Trump might attempt to remove Powell for cause before his term ends in 2026, potentially replacing him with a more compliant successor. Such a move could accelerate interest rate cuts, further weakening the dollar and boosting demand for alternative assets like bitcoin.

Krisztian Sandor, CoinDesk markets reporter (20:08 UTC):

Looking at derivatives, perp funding rates are at or below neutral for all major cryptos across the board. No immediate signs of speculative froth so far. As ByteTree chief investment officer Charlie Morris said in a market note this week, "crypto feels quiet," but "the quiet bulls are the best."

Tom Carreras, CoinDesk markets reporter (19:50 UTC):

On the altcoin front, things have remained relatively muted, with most large caps only rising 2%-5%. Notable exceptions among the top 50 coins by market capitalization include SUI$1.5448, pepe (PEPE) and DOGE$0.1381, which are up 12.4%, 8.6% and 6.3% respectively. The CoinDesk 20, meanwhile, is up 3.2%.

Omkar Godbole, CoinDesk analyst and co-managing editor for Markets (19:45 UTC):

Bitcoin is now in a "negative dealer gamma zone" between $112,000 and $120,000, Deribit options data tracked by Amberdata shows. This means that to maintain a net direction-neutral portfolio exposure, which they strive to do per mandate, market makers will have to buy the underlying asset as the market moves higher, adding to upside volatility. In short, the trend could accelerate.

Nikhilesh De, CoinDesk managing editor for Global Policy & Regulation (19:20 UTC):

Some are attributing bitcoin's all-time high to global currency fluctuations, saying that while $113,800 is indeed the highest BTC has been relative to USD, it's not the highest it's been relative to other currencies. And indeed, valuing BTC in terms of the U.S. dollar as opposed to other currencies or even other cryptocurrencies has long spurred debate within the industry.

Helene Braun, CoinDesk markets reporter (19:12 UTC):

Crypto-linked stocks are on fire, with crypto exchanges such as Robinhood (HOOD) and Coinbase (COIN) rising more than 3% on Thursday. Meanwhile, the miners such as Hut 8, Bitfarms, and HIVE Digital are up more than 4%. Interestingly, the stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL), the hottest new crypto IPO stock, is only up by 0.4%.

James Van Straten, CoinDesk Bitcoin analyst (18:55 UTC):

The 2021 bull run's second half was purely leverage and derivatives-driven. It had a 50% hash rate correction, and all on-chain metrics were bearish, plus we had incoming fed rate hikes for the first time. Market cycle is completely different with a new buyer in the market, a new Fed chair potentially incoming with cuts and a crypto-pro U.S. president. Also, don't forget the swath of bitcoin buying treasury companies.

Oliver Knight, co-leader of CoinDesk data and tokens (18:55 UTC):

Net accounts are still short (CoinDesk's Omkar Godbole mentioned this was a retail indicator). This is interesting, as in previous cycles, we had retail euphoria, but not so much this time.

However, while a record high for bitcoin is almost certainly bullish on the surface, a number of technical indicators paint a different picture: the daily RSI has now made three lower highs, an example of bearish divergence indicating the move could be short-lived. Trading volume has also dropped off since the initial record high in January, and BTC is still below its respective record highs against EUR and GBP, indicating dollar weakness over BTC strength.

Also, the trading firms I speak to are bearish, but it is worth noting that they were also bearish from BTC's $30k to $70k run in the last cycle's double top.

Read more: This One Metric Suggests Bitcoin Has Plenty of Room Left to Run