Bitcoin’s six-week period of range-bound trading has ended with a powerful breakout, triggering roughly $3 billion in short liquidations, the largest such event since at least 2021.
BTC climbed above $71,000 for the first time since June, adding around 3.5% since midnight UTC and roughly 11% over 24 hours. The move decisively broke the trading range that had contained Bitcoin since July 8.
The breakout was largely driven by market structure and positioning rather than a single fundamental catalyst. Bitcoin had spent six weeks trading between about $62,000 and $66,900, while volatility fell to multi-year lows.
The prolonged consolidation encouraged traders to repeatedly bet against attempts to break through the upper end of the range, creating a significant concentration of short-liquidation levels between $65,000 and $67,000.
Momentum shifted after the US Treasury announced plans to at least double its long-term bond-buyback operations to $4 billion. The announcement helped push the 30-year Treasury yield down from 5.337%, its highest level since 2007, supporting a broader move into risk assets.
Once Bitcoin cleared the key resistance zone, short positions were rapidly forced to close, creating additional buying pressure. BTC gained more than 8% within an hour as the squeeze accelerated.
Trump Provides Another Boost
President Donald Trump’s comments arrived several hours after Bitcoin had already made most of its initial move higher.
Trump called for Congress to advance the Clarity Act, suggested the US could acquire substantial amounts of Bitcoin and said regulators were developing a compliant US pathway for Hyperliquid.
Those remarks helped extend the rally and pushed Bitcoin firmly above $70,000.
Ether traded near $2,270, just below Wednesday’s three-month high, after rising 19% over 24 hours. Solana, XRP and Dogecoin also recorded double-digit gains.
Coinbase’s Fear and Greed Index climbed to 59, moving into “greed” territory from 41, which represented “fear.” Bitcoin’s daily trading volume jumped 250% to roughly $59 billion.
Short Positions Bear the Brunt
Crypto short liquidations reached approximately $3 billion over 24 hours, while long liquidations totaled about $263.5 million. The imbalance marked the biggest short liquidation event in data going back to at least 2021.
Bitcoin accounted for roughly $1.67 billion of the liquidations, with Ether responsible for about $1.14 billion. More than $1 billion of positions were wiped out within a single hour.
The aggregated BTC long-to-short account ratio fell to 0.835 from around 1.05 on Tuesday, showing that short positioning outweighed long positioning ahead of the breakout.
That bearish imbalance helped magnify what initially appeared to be a technical breakout into a much larger short squeeze.
Leverage Starts to Return
Total open interest increased 9.11% to $131.25 billion, according to Coinalyze. Bitcoin’s open interest rose 7.18% to $23.4 billion, while Ether’s increased 12.36% to $13.2 billion.
HYPE posted the sharpest increase in open interest, rising 29%. Most of that increase came after Trump’s comments about a potential US regulatory route for Hyperliquid rather than during Bitcoin’s initial breakout.
Funding rates remained relatively subdued despite the sharp price gains. BTC funding stood at 0.0101%, while ETH funding was 0.0103%.
The moderate funding levels suggest that traders have not yet rebuilt the aggressive leverage typically associated with the aftermath of a major short squeeze.
Bitcoin futures basis also declined, with the Aug. 28 OKX contract at 7.68% annualized and the Sept. 25 Deribit contract at 4.71%.
The relatively lower futures premium indicates that spot buying is currently leading the move, providing a cleaner bullish signal than a rally primarily fueled by leverage.
Altcoins Follow Bitcoin Higher
LIT gained 12.4% since midnight to $2.92 and was up 26.5% over 24 hours, bringing its weekly advance to 22.8%.
PUMP climbed 9.39% to $0.003285, extending its gains from Monday as daily trading volume reached $112 million.
ETHFI rose 5.68% to $0.5566 and was up 46.3% over seven days as Ethereum-related tokens tracked ETH’s advance toward a three-month high.
HYPE increased 2.4% since midnight to $71.12 and was up 21.9% over 24 hours following Trump’s comments on a potential US pathway for Hyperliquid.
WLFI moved against the broader trend, falling 4.66% to $0.0586 and ranking among the session’s weakest performers.
CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index declined to 36 from 44, while Bitcoin dominance increased to 59.2%. The shift suggests traders are directing more capital toward Bitcoin and other large-cap cryptocurrencies rather than smaller altcoins.
