$95M of Shorts Liquidated as Bitcoin, Ether Rise 8%

Almost 88% of traders betting against an increase in crypto prices booked losses as exchanges closed leveraged positions due to a partial or total evaporation of the trader’s initial margin, data from analytics tool Coinglass show.

Crypto exchange OKX saw $44 million worth of short losses, the most among all crypto exchanges, followed by $22 million on Binance and $11 million on Bybit, data show.

Some $47.45 million of bitcoin futures were liquidated in the past 12 hours, the most among major cryptocurrencies. Ether futures had $22 million in losses, followed by LUNA with $12 million.

Privacy-focused cryptocurrencies made an unusual showing. Futures tracking Monero’s XMR and Zcash’s ZEC recorded $1 million worth of losses as prices of the two surged as much as 25% in the past 24 hours. The jump outperformed the broader market, which increased 6% in the same period.

Bitcoin traded above $41,000 in the European morning, up from $38,000 on Tuesday, as a U.S. presidential executive order on cryptocurrencies supported “responsible innovation” of the sector. The executive order is widely expected to be signed by U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

The losses stemming from short positions contributed to a total of $114 million in liquidations, affecting nearly 46,700 individual trading accounts, data show.