Bitcoin Breaks Higher as Ether Joins Record Crypto Short Squeeze

Bitcoin has broken through the US$80k (AU$111.8k) barrier again, gaining 4.3% over the past 24 hours and 27.5% over the past week. At the time of writing, BTC is trading at US$80,684 (AU$112,774).

According to Bitfinex’s latest market report, the move came with a sting in the tail: traders betting against Bitcoin were caught in one of the biggest liquidation waves ever recorded.

Bitcoin had been boxed in between US$62,000 and US$65,000 (AU$86,652–AU$90,845) since 8 July. Then it broke out. By 20 August it had cleared US$71,000 (AU$99,231), and it kept climbing into the upper US$70k range from there. All this came in a month that’s historically brutal for Bitcoin – August has had a median return of -6.99% since 2013, Bitfinex noted.

The catalyst was a US Treasury announcement on expanded buybacks of longer-dated government debt, which gave markets their first clear liquidity-support signal of the quarter.

That mattered because Bitcoin had been stuck in a relatively tight range. Once the top of that range broke, buying accelerated as traders covering short positions added to the move.

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Shorts Take a Beating

Around US$3 billion (AU$4.19 billion) in crypto short positions were liquidated between 19 and 20 August, compared with just US$337 million (AU$471 million) in long liquidations.

Bitfinex Alpha called it the largest short-side liquidation event on record, and roughly the seventh-largest liquidation day overall. A rough few days to be a bear.

But this wasn’t purely about shorts getting steamrolled. Bitcoin futures open interest actually climbed to around US$51.36 billion (AU$71.81 billion) over the same three days – meaning traders were opening fresh positions even as the old shorts got wiped out. Fresh money was coming in, not just old money leaving.

Ether Joins the Rally

Ether rode the wave too, up more than 32% since 19 August as the rest of the market followed Bitcoin’s lead. It’s currently trading at US$2,506 (AU$3,503), per CoinMarketCap.

Bitfinex’s analysts pointed out the rally played out against fairly thin market conditions, the kind that can turn a crowded trade into a violent one in either direction. This time it went up.

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The next line in the sand, according to Bitfinex, sits around US$86,500 (AU$120,888), roughly where buyers who entered the market 18 months to two years ago finally break even. Clear that, and the pressure eases further. Slip back under US$70k, though, and this whole rally starts looking like a short squeeze that got ahead of itself.