The crypto derivatives market just had its most violent two-week stretch in years. Approximately $9.71 billion in positions were liquidated across the market over the past 14 days, with the overwhelming majority coming from traders who bet prices would fall.
The squeeze that broke the bears
The carnage started on August 19-20, when a single-day liquidation event wiped out between $2.7 billion and $3 billion in short positions. That makes it the largest concentrated liquidation of shorts since November 2021, back when Bitcoin was coming off its all-time high and the market was a very different animal.
Shorts accounted for roughly 92% of the total liquidations during that peak window. More than $1 billion in short positions evaporated in just one hour during the most intense stretch.
Bitcoin was the main character. The price surged from intraday lows around $64,100 to peaks exceeding $71,000-$72,000, levels not seen since early June. Ethereum wasn’t far behind in terms of pain inflicted on bears.
