The bears have misjudged the market once again. Bitcoin (BTC) briefly reached $80,594 on Monday, its highest point since January 31, before retreating to around $79,851. This move led to $370 million in total cryptocurrency liquidations over the past 24 hours, impacting 97,235 traders, as per CoinGlass data.

Of this total, $301.93 million was attributed to short positions. Shorts were liquidated approximately four times as much as longs, indicating dominant bearish positioning prior to the move, which forced them to unwind their positions at a loss. Bitcoin accounted for $179 million of the losses, while ether traders contributed $95 million.

The largest single liquidation was an $11.77 million ETH/USDT short on Binance. This is the second such incident in two weeks, with a similar setup on April 18 resulting in $593 million in short liquidations as bitcoin surpassed $77,000 following reports of an Iran ceasefire. The pattern is beginning to appear structural, with funding rates on bitcoin perpetuals remaining negative for most of April, meaning shorts have been paying longs to maintain their short positions, and each time the price increases, the same trade unwinds violently. Other major cryptocurrencies also saw gains, with ether rising 2.3% to $2,368 and XRP gaining 2.1% to $1.42.

BNB added 1.9% to $630, and Solana rose 1.4% to $85.14. Dogecoin continued its strong performance, increasing 3.5% on the day and 14.3% on the week to $0.1119, extending the breakout that began last week alongside the year-high open interest in DOGE futures. Net inflows into U.S.

spot bitcoin ETFs reached $153.9 million last week, according to SoSoValue, with April seeing $1.97 billion in total, the highest monthly total since October 2025. Ether ETFs, however, experienced $82.5 million in net outflows, ending a three-week streak of inflows. FxPro analysts stated that bitcoin needs to consolidate above $85,000 to confirm the breakout, adding that the rising price and the downward-sloping 200-day moving average are converging with an important long-term trend line at $83,600. Consolidation above this level could encourage traders, but they prefer to see consolidation above $85,000 first.