Over $202M in Short Bitcoin, Ethereum Positions Liquidated Amid Bullish Move

After a week of steady losses, crypto prices have turned a bullish corner in the last day. And traders shorting Bitcoin and Ethereum have been caught out.

This positive price movement puts the total market capitalization just above $1.05 trillion, an increase of 7.15% in the last 24 hours, suggests CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin (BTC), the leading cryptocurrency with a market cap of $438 billion, is up 7.3% in the last 24 hours and is trading at around $22,884.

Despite significant daily gains, BTC is still down 66.66% from its all-time high of $68,789.63 recorded in November 2021, reports CoinMarketCap.

Ethereum (ETH) has also made significant gains of nearly 11% over the past 24 hours. ETH is the second largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $197 billion.

The leading smart contracts blockchain is trading at around $1,614 a piece, down 66.69% from its record highs in November 2021, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Almost 88,140 traders were liquidated during the last 24 hours, reports say Coinglass.

Of these traders, a large majority (72%) were short various cryptocurrencies, resulting in losses of $273.87 million.

Ethereum led liquidations, with nearly $165.52 million liquidated, of which $120.34 million were short positions. Bitcoin traders were also liquidated to the tune of $116.60 million ($82.47 million in shorts), followed by $31.28 million ($22.10 million in shorts) of Ethereum Classic wiped out.

Apart from Bitcoin and Ethereum, DeFitokens, including Lido (37%), Synthetix (24%) and Uniswap (23%), have also produced significant gains.

Ethereum Classic (28%), Bitcoin Cash (23%) and several other proof-of-work (PoW) blockchains also showed positive price movement.

What’s Driving the Bitcoin Rally?

Today’s bullish price action comes on the heels of the US Federal Reserve delivering the expected 75 basis point hike and strong growth in trading volume.

Total cryptocurrency trading volume also jumped 30% from $72.78 billion yesterday to $93.12 billion today, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Not only cryptocurrencies, stock markets also reacted positively after the latest interest rate hike.

Yesterday, at the close of trading, US stock indexes, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) closed 1.37% higher, and the Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) rose 4.06%.