Bitcoin surged to nearly $75,000 during Asian trading on Friday, extending a sharp recovery that has lifted the cryptocurrency almost 18% over the past week. The rally came after bitcoin briefly climbed above $75,500 overnight, marking a significant rebound from roughly $64,100 just two days earlier.
The rapid move higher triggered another wave of losses for traders betting on falling prices. Around $1 billion worth of short positions were liquidated over a 24-hour period, accounting for most of the $1.23 billion in total crypto liquidations involving about 140,416 traders, according to CoinGlass.
The latest liquidations followed nearly $3 billion in short positions wiped out on Thursday, the largest single-day amount recorded in data going back to 2021. Combined, more than $4 billion in short positions have been liquidated over two days. The largest individual liquidation in the latest session involved a $25.13 million bitcoin position on Hyperliquid.
Liquidations occur when leveraged traders suffer losses large enough for an exchange to automatically close their positions. In this case, traders were positioned for cryptocurrency prices to decline. As prices instead moved higher, those traders were forced to buy back their positions, adding further upward pressure and contributing to a liquidation cascade.
The scale of the liquidations is significant because it suggests that market mechanics are playing a major role in the rally. Forced buying from traders closing losing short positions can accelerate price gains, even when the buying is not necessarily driven by investors deciding that an asset has become more valuable.
Other major cryptocurrencies also posted strong gains. Hyperliquid’s HYPE climbed more than 4% to almost $73 and was up roughly 27% over the week. Ether gained nearly 5% to about $2,350, bringing its seven-day advance to approximately 24.5%.
Dogecoin rose almost 9% to slightly above 8 cents, while Solana gained more than 5% to just under $90. Both cryptocurrencies were up around 17% over the previous seven days.
BNB advanced 6% to approximately $660 and was about 8% higher over the week. Tron was among the weaker major tokens, rising around 1.5% to just below 34 cents with little change over the seven-day period.
The broader cryptocurrency rally began Wednesday after the U.S. Treasury increased the size of its long-term bond buybacks from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation. The move helped ease conditions in the roughly $30 trillion Treasury market and boosted demand for riskier assets.
Bitcoin subsequently broke through resistance around $66,600, encouraging traders to watch the $76,000 level as the next major target.
Political developments in Washington also supported market sentiment. U.S. President Donald Trump called on Congress to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act during a White House event on Wednesday. Trump appeared alongside executives from major cryptocurrency companies, including Coinbase, Gemini, Ripple and Chainlink Labs.
The combination of improving liquidity, a sharp unwinding of leveraged short positions and renewed political support for cryptocurrency legislation has helped fuel one of bitcoin’s strongest rallies in recent weeks.
