Short Trades Make up 90% of $200M in Losses as Bitcoin, Ether Surge

Traders betting on a market-wide decline were caught off guard as a broader market recovery in the past 24 hours saw $185 million in shorts, or bets against price rises, getting liquidated.

That contributed to over $200 million in overall liquidation losses. Liquidation refers to when an exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position due to a partial or total loss of the trader’s initial margin. It happens when a trader is unable to meet the margin requirements for a leveraged position (fails to have sufficient funds to keep the trade open).

Large liquidations can signal the local top or bottom of a steep price move – which may allow traders to position themselves accordingly.

Bitcoin-tracked futures saw over $85 million in liquidations alone, the highest among all cryptocurrencies. Ether futures logged $58 million in liquidations, while futures of aptos, solana and solana each saw losses between $3 million to $4 million.

Crypto exchange Binance recorded the most losses among its counterparts at $68 million, followed by OKX at $51 million.

Crypto market capitalization increased 8.8% to reach its highest level since November, erasing losses from the contagion effects stemming from FTX’s collapse and troubles at crypto lender Genesis. (Genesis and CoinDesk share the same parent company, DCG.)

Bitcoin and ether rose to over $24,500 and $1,600 respectively, leading to a market-wide recovery. Okb, the native tokens of crypto exchange OKX, surged 20%, the most among major cryptocurrencies, while BNB Chain’s bnb BNB$896.67 rose to $323 in Asian afternoon hours – reversing losses from earlier this week.

Tokens of layer 1 blockchains solana SOL$133.03 and Polygon's MATIC added 10% apiece in the past 24 hours. Elsewhere, artificial intelligence-focused tokens such as fetch (FET) and AGIX continued their week-long run, adding over 12%.