Over $100M in Liquidations as Bitcoin (BTC) Price Soars to $40K

Although most weekends tend to go relatively quiet for the volatile cryptocurrency industry, this one saw a more impressive price surge for BTC and several assets.

This resulted in tapping a new 19-month peak for the primary digital asset and millions of dollars liquidated, mostly for short positions.

• As CryptoPotato reported earlier today, BTC had soared to a multi-month peak at $39,000 on Friday evening for the first time in over a year and a half.
• The asset failed to continue its momentum and retraced by several hundred dollars. However, there was a looming feeling among the community that another leg up was in the making.
• This price pump indeed transpired on Saturday evening when bitcoin soared by over a grand in minutes and thus came just inches away from tapping $40,000 for the first time since May 2022.
• So far, though, the asset has been unable to breach that level and has dumped by around $700.

• Several altcoins also surged by notable percentages but have retraced just like BTC. Nevertheless, Chainlink is still over 7% up on the day and trades above $16. The other impressive gainers include RUNE (11%) and NEAR (6%).
• The second-largest cryptocurrency – Ethereum (ETH) – has added 3% of value and has jumped well above $2,100.
• This enhanced volatility has harmed over-leveraged traders as the total number of liquidations has soared to more than $100 million on a daily scale.
• Somewhat expectedly, the majority of wrecked traders had shorted the market. The single largest liquidated order was worth $2 million and took place on OKX.