The forced-buying wave that drove $844 million in losses for crypto short sellers has cooled, leaving Bitcoin largely unchanged over the past hour. Among major tokens, Zcash was the only one still posting a decline.
Dogecoin led the rebound, climbing more than 15% to trade just above 10 cents during Tuesday’s Asian morning session, according to CoinDesk data.
Bitcoin hovered around $85,600 after gaining about 5% over the previous 24 hours. The cryptocurrency was flat on the hour as much of its recent advance came from short sellers being forced to close positions.
More than $1 billion in crypto positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours, CoinGlass data showed. Short positions made up $844 million of that figure, representing about 82% of total liquidations. Around 135,000 traders had their positions closed.
When traders short an asset, they profit from a decline in its price. Because borrowed positions require collateral, a sharp enough price increase can trigger automatic closures when the collateral no longer covers the losses. The resulting buybacks can push prices higher and cause additional short positions to be liquidated.
Bitcoin accounted for roughly $608 million of the liquidated positions, while Ether contributed $181 million. The largest single liquidation was a Bitcoin position worth nearly $21 million on Hyperliquid.
XRP gained 7% to approach $1.52, while Solana rose 5% to just under $117. Ether added 3% to nearly $2,740. BNB and TRX climbed between 1% and 2%. Zcash fell 4% to slightly above $1,450, making it the only major token in negative territory.
Liquidations slowed considerably, with less than $11 million recorded during the latest hour compared with more than $300 million per hour at the peak of Monday’s move. With forced buying fading, the market’s next direction will depend more on new demand than on short sellers being squeezed out.
AI Stocks Extend Rally
Asian markets maintained the upbeat momentum from Monday’s U.S. trading session.
MSCI’s Asia Pacific index rose nearly 1% for a fifth consecutive gain, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix among the leading performers as semiconductor stocks followed Wall Street’s advance. South Korea’s Kospi climbed 2%, while Taiwan’s benchmark reached a record intraday level.
The renewed enthusiasm around artificial intelligence was a key driver. U.S. equities benefited from early signs of adoption for Meta Platforms’ new AI agent, while AMD moved toward a $1 trillion valuation.
Meta introduced Muse, an AI agent designed to operate across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, nearly two weeks ago. It has since surpassed ChatGPT as the leading free app on Apple’s U.S. App Store. Apptopia data showed nearly 3 million global installs, with iOS downloads in the U.S. and Canada almost 40% higher during Muse’s first 12 days than ChatGPT recorded during its first 12 days on mobile.
Investors are also linking the growth of AI agents to higher demand for computing capacity. Because AI agents rely on servers to generate responses, broader consumer adoption could increase demand for chips and other data-center infrastructure.
AMD, which receives around 5% of its revenue from Meta, surged as much as 10% Monday and briefly crossed the $1 trillion market-capitalization mark. Intel gained as much as 12%, while Arm climbed 14%. The gains helped the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rise more than 4% for a fifth straight session.
In China, Alibaba said Tuesday that it was introducing what it called the country’s “most powerful AI chip,” an accelerator intended to compete with Nvidia. Alibaba shares in Hong Kong moved higher following the announcement, while Tencent gained after releasing a new image-generation model.
