Over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin has caused a massive liquidation storm across the crypto market. Notably, contracts worth $840 million were liquidated since Thursday, one of the highest numbers ever. While the majority of these were short contracts, data suggests that longs could face threat in the coming days.
Bitcoin shorts liquidated, but longs aren’t safe
According to exchange data received from Binance on Friday, the crypto market has seen its largest liquidation event since October 2025. About 10 months back, a historic short squeeze propelled BTC beyond $120,000, and eventually to its current all-time high of more than $126,000.
A short squeeze happens when traders betting on a price decline are forced to buy back their positions as the asset rises, pushing the price even higher. This forced buying can create a rapid feedback loop that accelerates the rally and triggers even more short liquidations.
Since October 2025, long liquidations had been leading, resulting in BTC’s successive downward move that has only started to change course since Wednesday. However, as of Friday, short liquidations are on the receiving end once again.
Specifically, cumulative short liquidations on Binance have surged to $7.739 billion. On the flip side, cumulative long liquidations on the trading platform are trailing slightly behind at $7.582 billion.
The current market dynamic also gives some hints about what might happen next. Since the majority of short positions have been liquidated, the market is likely to come after greedy longs now.
Given the crypto market’s tendency to seek out dense liquidity clusters, it would be prudent for investors to exercise some caution. Especially, at this phase of the market, the late long-entrants are likely to get hunted as the eagerness to enter the market climbs again.
Is BTC going to take a breather?
Following a jump of almost 15 percent over the past 2 days, momentum indicators such as the relative strength index signal an overextended rally for the top cryptocurrency by market cap.
In the same vein, the so-called Fear and Greed Index is tilting toward market greed, hinting that BTC may take some rest – if not a small correction – before resuming its uptrend.
Bulls should probably also avoid getting too excited, since on-chain confirmation of BTC’s rally is still pending. That said, BTC is showing signs of strength against precious metals like gold, and silver, which could mean another leg up for the cryptocurrency.
