The Bears were wrong again.
Bitcoin briefly hit $80,594 early Monday, its highest print since Jan. 31, before pulling back to trade around $79,851 at the time of writing. The move sparked $370 million in total crypto liquidations over the past 24 hours, affecting 97,235 traders, according to CoinGlass data. Of the total, $301.93 million came from short positions.
Shorts were liquidated approximately four times as much as longs, indicating that bearish positioning dominated the movement. They were caught offside as the rally forced them to settle positions at a loss.
Bitcoin alone accounted for $179 million of the wipeout, with ether traders contributing $95 million. The largest single liquidation was an ETH/USDT short of $11.77 million on Binance.
The squeeze is the second of its kind in two weeks. A similar setup on April 18 wiped out $593 million in shorts as bitcoin pushed past $77,000 on reports of an Iran ceasefire.
The pattern begins to look structural.
Funding rates on bitcoin perpetuals have been locked in the negative for most of April, meaning shorts have paid long to stay short, and every time the price pushes higher, the same trade is liquidated violently.
Other large companies caught the bid. Ether rose 2.3% to $2,368, gaining 2.2% on the week. XRP rose 2.1% to $1.42. BNB added 1.9% to $630. Solana rose 1.4% to $85.14. Dogecoin remains the standout performer, up 3.5% on the day and 14.3% on the week to $0.1119, extending the breakout that started last week along with the year-long open interest in DOGE futures.
Net inflows into US spot bitcoin ETFs reached $153.9 million last week, per SoSoValue. April attracted $1.97 billion across the products, the highest monthly amount since October 2025. Ether ETFs saw the opposite move, with $82.5 million in net outflows ending a three-week inflow streak.
FxPro analysts said in a note that bitcoin needs to consolidate above $85,000 to confirm the breakout.
“The rising price and the bearish 200-day moving average are actively converging with an important long-term trend line at $83,600. Consolidation above this level could further encourage traders, but we prefer to see consolidation above $85,000 first.”
Derivative positioning
- Privacy-focused Zcash (ZEC), smart contract platform ether (ETH) and market leader bitcoin are the biggest open interest (OI) gainers over the past 24 hours, indicating a broad-based increase in derivatives activity.
- Bitcoin futures OI has risen to 763.35K BTC, up sharply from the May 1 low of 707.24K BTC. The rise suggests renewed capital inflows into the market after April’s end-of-the-month de-risking. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) has turned positive, meaning that buyers are driving trading activity by placing more market orders than sellers instead of using passive limit orders.
- ZEC shows a similar setup. Open interest is hovering near a four-month high of 2.26 million tokens, accompanied by one of the strongest CVD readings among major tokens. Funding ratios are also positive around 7%, indicating a bias towards long positioning.
- Ethereum futures OI has risen to 14.17 million ETH, the highest level since April 18. Like Bitcoin, it is supported by positive funding rates and a positive 24-hour CVD, suggesting sustained demand from leveraged longs.
- Not all markets look equally balanced. Privacy coin monero (XMR) and seems overheated with signs of crowded bullish positioning. Funding rates in these markets have risen above 60%, raising the risk of long squeezes if momentum stalls.
- However, the options markets signal relative calm. Annual 30-day implied volatility for both bitcoin and ether has remained muted for over a month, consistent with a steady, higher rally. The Ethereum Volatility Index (EVIV) is now nearing the 55% level, a zone that has bottomed several times since 2024, making it a key level to watch for a potential spike in volatility.
- On Deribit, biases in bitcoin and ether have weakened significantly compared to a month ago. This shift suggests reduced demand for downside protection and increased appetite for upside exposure via call options as prices continue to rise.
Token Talk
- One of the main winners of the CLARITY Act dividend compromise appears to be real-world asset tokens. The compromise would have companies restructure rewards programs from a “buy and hold” to a “buy and use model.”
- That, combined with growing regulatory clarity around tokenized real-world assets, has helped drive a rally in RWA tokens, with Ondo Finance’s ONDO leading gains.
- It is up 11% over the past 24 hours, breaking above its reported 90-day trading range as investors returned to real-world tokenized assets. Tokens included and PENDLE is also up.
- Ondo’s total value locked in stands at $3.57 billion, with a market cap of $1.5 billion, according to DeFiLlama data. The rally also comes on the heels of broader interest in real-world asset tokenization, with more than $30.9 billion tokenized according to RWA.xyz data.
- The move came after several recent developments for the project. Ondo Finance tapped Broadridge Financial Solutions to add proxy voting and archive access for more than 250 tokenized stocks and ETFs this week.
