Bitcoin broke above $77,000 during European morning trading Friday, extending its advance to a fifth consecutive day. BTC was up roughly 8% over the previous 24 hours and about 22% over the past week.
Short sellers faced another wave of forced closures, with approximately $1.2 billion in short positions liquidated during the latest 24-hour period. Total crypto liquidations reached around $1.4 billion across 156,211 traders, according to CoinGlass.
The latest losses came after more than $3 billion in shorts were liquidated Thursday, marking the biggest single-day total in records going back to 2021. The combined amount of short liquidations over two days has now topped $4 billion.
The largest individual position liquidated in the latest period was a $25.13 million Bitcoin trade on Hyperliquid.
A liquidation happens when a leveraged trader’s position moves far enough against them that an exchange automatically closes it to protect against losses exceeding the trader’s collateral.
Most of the affected traders were betting on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies falling. As exchanges forced those positions to close, the resulting buying added momentum to the rally and triggered additional liquidations.
The scale of the squeeze is important because it helps distinguish organic buying from a rally fueled largely by market mechanics. Forced short covering represents traders exiting losing bets rather than investors voluntarily increasing exposure at higher prices.
Hyperliquid’s HYPE token rose more than 4% to almost $73, making it the strongest major crypto performer over the past week with gains approaching 27%.
Ether gained nearly 5% to around $2,350 and was up about 24.5% over seven days. Dogecoin climbed almost 9% to slightly above $0.08, while Solana rose more than 5% to just below $90. Both were up around 17% over the week.
BNB advanced 6% to approximately $660, taking its seven-day gain to around 8%. Tron underperformed, adding about 1.5% to just under $0.34 and remaining nearly flat over the week.
Bitcoin’s latest surge began Wednesday after the U.S. Treasury announced that it would double the size of long-term Treasury buyback operations from $2 billion to $4 billion per transaction. The move helped ease conditions in the roughly $30 trillion Treasury market and boosted broader risk appetite.
Bitcoin then moved above resistance near $66,600, putting the $76,000 level on traders’ radar as the next major technical target.
Political developments provided an additional boost. President Donald Trump urged lawmakers to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act during a White House event Wednesday attended by executives from Coinbase, Gemini, Ripple and Chainlink Labs.
Bitcoin’s market capitalization has climbed to roughly $1.5 trillion. Despite the recovery, BTC remains around 40% below its record high above $126,000 reached last October.
