Bitcoin jumped 3% to $69,120 on Monday as traders returned from the Easter weekend to a burst of optimism around a potential Iran ceasefire, pushing the biggest cryptocurrency to its highest level in over a week and squeezing $196 million into short positions over the past 24 hours.
Ether led a bump among major tokens, rising 3.7% to $2,130, its strongest daily move in the past week. SOL rose 2% to $82, XRP added 2.2% to $1.34, and dogecoin rose 1.7% to $0.093. The broad rally pushed the total crypto market cap back to over $2.5 trillion.
The catalyst was an Axios report that the United States, Iran and a group of regional mediators are discussing the terms of a potential 45-day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent end to the six-week-old conflict.
Reports that more ships had passed through the Strait of Hormuz added to the relief, even as Trump issued increasingly aggressive threats to destroy Iran’s power plants starting Tuesday.
The liquidation data tells the story of how the market was positioned heading into the weekend.
Of the $273.8 million in total 24-hour liquidations across 81,819 traders, shorts accounted for $196.7 million against $77.1 million in longs, a nearly 3-to-1 ratio that indicates traders were strongly positioned for further downside following last week’s sentiment collapse. The single largest liquidation was a $10.17 million ETH-USDT short on Binance.
Bitcoin’s 24-hour range extended from $66,634 to $69,350, a swing of $2,700 that captured the worst of the short positioning.
The move came after Santiment data showed over the weekend that social media sentiment had hit its most bearish bias since the war began, with five negative posts for every four positive ones. As is often the case in crypto, the most bearish sentimental reading of the cycle produced the sharpest bounce.
The move recaptures the top of bitcoin’s five-week war range, but doesn’t break it. The $65,000 to $73,000 channel that has featured every rally and sale since the conflict began remains intact.
Resistance levels at $71,500 and $81,200, corresponding to the Lower Band and Trader On-chain Realized Price indicators as tracked in a CoinDesk report, sit overhead as the next meaningful tests if the truce momentum holds.
Whether this rally has more substance than the last three depends entirely on whether the 45-day ceasefire materializes or becomes another headline that is withdrawn within 48 hours.
