Short sellers face market's wrath as $700M gets liquidated in minutes originally appeared on TheStreet.
It’s a bloodbath for bearish traders.
According to real-time data from CoinGlass, more than $700 million worth of crypto positions were liquidated in less than an hour, and nearly all of it came from short sellers getting absolutely crushed. Bitcoin alone saw over $425 million in short liquidations — only about $5 million of that tally came from the long side.
So, what’s going on?
This is what traders call a short squeeze — and it’s textbook. Bitcoin has been on a tear lately, and when prices jump unexpectedly, anyone betting against the rally (aka “shorting”) suddenly finds themselves in trouble.
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Here’s how it works, when a trader shorts Bitcoin, they’re borrowing the asset and selling it, hoping to buy it back at a lower price. But if the price goes up instead, their losses mount—and fast. If the price climbs high enough, the exchange will force-sell their positions to cover losses. That’s what we’re seeing now, and it's hitting hard.
The latest numbers show that across major exchanges like Bybit, HTX, and Gate.io, over 95% of liquidated positions are shorts. That means a lot of traders were betting Bitcoin would fall—and they’re paying the price for it now.
To make matters worse for the bears, this kind of squeeze becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. As shorts get liquidated, they’re forced to buy Bitcoin at higher prices to close their positions. That extra buying pressure pushes the price even higher, triggering even more liquidations. And the cycle repeats.
Bitcoin is now trading above $116,000, blowing past its previous all-time highs and pulling the rest of the crypto market with it. ETH is climbing, SOL is up, and even memecoins are catching bids.
Short sellers face market's wrath as $700M gets liquidated in minutes first appeared on TheStreet on Jul 10, 2025
This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jul 10, 2025, where it first appeared.
