Short sellers just had a very bad hour. Approximately $111 million in crypto short positions were liquidated in roughly 60 minutes after US inflation data came in cooler than Wall Street expected, triggering a sharp rally across digital assets.
Bitcoin ripped past $64,000 and briefly approached $65,000, while Ethereum climbed to around $1,900. The move was fast, violent, and extremely one-sided, which is exactly the kind of price action that turns leveraged bets into expensive lessons.
What happened and why it matters
The catalyst was the July 14 US Consumer Price Index report, which showed headline inflation at 3.5% year-over-year. That came in below expectations, and the month-over-month decline was the largest since April 2020.
The market’s response was immediate. Bitcoin surged, dragging the rest of the crypto market with it, and traders who had bet on prices going lower got caught on the wrong side. Of the roughly $111 million in liquidations, approximately $105.8 million were short positions, meaning the vast majority of the pain was concentrated among bears.
