Bitcoin Shorts Suffer as BTC Price Surges to 8-Month High

• Bitcoin short-sellers have been taking a beating in the past two days, with liquidations of around $100 million worth of short future positions across major exchanges.
• On Thursday, Bitcoin surged to a new high since June 2022 at $25,270. This was partly due to news that two of the largest Mt Gox creditors will receive most of their payout in BTC, rather than fiat.
• Despite now pulling back around 5% from earlier session highs, Bitcoin is still up around 45% this year and bulls remain in the driving seat.

Bitcoin Short Sellers Take a Beating

Bitcoin short-sellers have taken a battering in the past two days. That’s according to data presented by crypto derivative analytics website coinglass.com, which shows liquidations in short Bitcoin future positions worth around $100 million across major exchanges over the past two sessions, during which time Bitcoin has gained an impressive 8.5%.

Mt Gox Helps Spur Thursday’s Surge

At current levels in the $24,100 region, Bitcoin is trading just under 13% above earlier monthly lows in the low $21,000s. Bearish calls last week for Bitcoin to fall back towards the $20,000 level ultimately proved wrong, with Bitcoin instead managing to notch a new high since June 2022 on Thursday at $25,270. News that two of the largest Mt Gox creditors will receive most of their payout in BTC, rather than fiat, helped spur Thursday’s spike. Mt Gox was one of the earliest Bitcoin exchanges but lost most of its funds due to a hack back in 2014 that caused the exchange to fold and creditors engaged long asset recovery proceedings ever since.

Long Position Liquidations Spike on Thursday

The Mt Gox-fuelled intra-day rally was however short-lived and seems to have caught out some short-term bullish speculators betting on a push to upper $25000s as evidenced by spike in long position liquidations on Thursday according to coinglass.com long positions worth around $35 million have been liquidated on Thursday following long position liquidations of only around $5 million on Wednesday . Profit taking wake recent rally and stop run those who had gotten overly aggressive chasing upside might well send bitcoin back below 24000 .

Bulls Remain Strong

Despite pullback from earlier session highs , bitcoin is still up around 45 percent this year despite having now pulled back around 5 percent from earlier session highs . Bulls remain driving seat , despite recent rally US dollar and US bond yields expectation additional interest rate hikes Fed this year string hotter than expected major US data releases .

Why Has BTC Performed so Well?

Some analysts are saying that bitcoin performed so well 2023 because got so oversold last year wake collapse FTX others say doing well because more fed interest rate hikes expected end hiking cycle better macro environment sight others point various other factors including institutional demand retail demand increasing regulatory clarity