Ether and solana led crypto higher on Friday as pressure from bearish traders pushed bitcoin towards $62,000, capping the market’s first really strong week since mid-June.
Bitcoin was trading around $61,360, up 2.5% over seven days, as of CoinDesk data. Ether rose 4.2% in 24 hours to around $1,702 and is up 9.7% on the week, while solana held close to $80 with a weekly gain of 18.6%, the strongest among the majors. XRP added 5.7% on the week to $1.09 and Hyperliquid’s HYPE gained 5.1% on the day.
Traders betting against crypto lost $281 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, versus $159 million in longs, out of $440 million in total foreclosures across 95,690 traders, according to Coinglass data.
When shorts are forced to close, they buy back the asset, and that buying pushes prices into the next tranche of shorts, the loop that turns a modest jump into a squeeze.
The biggest single liquidation was an $18.2 million ether position on Hyperliquid, fittingly on a day when ether led the charge for bears with $157 million in wiped out positions against bitcoin’s $103 million in an unusual flip.
