The broad rally in the cryptocurrency market has triggered over $500 million worth of short liquidations in the past 24 hours, marking the largest short squeeze since October.
Crypto Market Rally Triggers $500 Million in Short Liquidations as Bitcoin, Ether, and Dogecoin Soar
The rally was led by Bitcoin (BTC), which climbed from $88,000 to above $93,500 during early Asian trading hours. Major altcoins followed suit, with Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), and Dogecoin (DOGE) each gaining around 14%. Green dominated the top 100 coins by market cap, with Solana (SOL) and XRP gaining around 7%.
The rally was partly driven by renewed optimism in macroeconomic conditions following comments by former U.S. President Donald Trump suggesting a softer stance on tariffs against China. Trump has indicated that he will be very lenient in upcoming trade talks and suggested that tariffs could be lowered if the US and China reach a deal.
The unexpected spike in prices led to approximately $530 million in liquidations of leveraged short positions betting on crypto prices to fall. Data shows Bybit had the largest share at $234 million, followed by Binance with $100 million and Gate.io with around $70 million. The largest single liquidation was an Ethereum futures position on Binance worth more than $4.5 million.
Liquidations occur when exchanges forcibly close leveraged positions due to insufficient margin. This is a mechanism intended to protect traders and the platform from cascading losses.
Altcoin Momentum and the Memecoin Craze
While large-cap tokens led the way, several altcoins and memecoins saw even stronger gains. SUI, UNI, and NEAR all rose by as much as 18%, while memecoin MOG jumped by a staggering 30%, continuing its trend of being a high-beta play closely tied to Ethereum’s market movements.
*This is not investment advice.
