The crypto market has seen bears misjudge the situation once more. Bitcoin briefly reached $80,594, its highest point since January 31, before adjusting to trade around $79,851.
This move led to $370 million in total crypto liquidations over 24 hours, impacting 97,235 traders, with $301.93 million of this coming from short positions. The dominance of bearish positioning prior to the move meant that shorts were liquidated roughly four times as much as longs, forcing them to close positions at a loss.
Bitcoin accounted for $179 million of these liquidations, while ether traders lost $95 million. The largest single liquidation was an $11.77 million ETH/USDT short on Binance. This is the second such event in two weeks, following a similar setup on April 18 that wiped out $593 million in shorts as bitcoin surpassed $77,000. The pattern suggests a structural issue, with funding rates on bitcoin perpetuals remaining negative for most of April, indicating that shorts have been paying longs to maintain their positions, leading to violent unwinding when the price increases.
Other major cryptocurrencies also saw gains, with ether rising 2.3% to $2,368, XRP gaining 2.1% to $1.42, BNB adding 1.9% to $630, and Solana increasing 1.4% to $85.14. Dogecoin stood out with a 3.5% daily gain and a 14.3% weekly increase to $0.1119, extending its breakout.
Net inflows into U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs reached $153.9 million last week, with April seeing $1.97 billion in total, the highest since October 2025.
Conversely, ether ETFs experienced $82.5 million in net outflows. Analysts at FxPro noted that for the breakout to be confirmed, bitcoin needs to consolidate above $85,000, as the rising price and downward-sloping 200-day moving average converge with a long-term trend line at $83,600.