$380M in Shorts Liquidated in an Hour as Bitcoin (BTC) Skyrockets to $81K

It was just 12 hours ago that the primary cryptocurrency struggled following the conclusion of the US midterm elections, dumping to a seven-week low of $75,600. The landscape now appears entirely different, with the asset reclaiming $80,000 and even touching $81,000 before it was stopped.

The altcoins have expectedly followed suit. ETH has rocketed by more than 6% on a daily scale (and 5% hourly) to $2,440, while XRP has pushed past the $1.30 barrier.

Naturally, these rapid price moves caught over-leveraged traders by surprise. Especially those with open short positions. Data from CoinGlass shows that $380 million worth of shorts have been liquidated in the past hour alone, while wrecked longs are at $90 million.

The numbers on a 24-hour scale show that more than $910 million worth of both longs and shorts have been wiped out. The number of liquidated trades is above 117,000, according to CoinGlass data.

The single-largest liquidated order is a whopping one. It took place on HTX, involved the ETH/USDT trading pair, and was worth a mind-blowing $38 million.

The most likely reason for this turnaround is the removal of uncertainty. As reported earlier this morning, the Democratic Party reclaimed both chambers of Congress following US midterm elections, which, at first, led to a major price decline to the aforementioned seven-week low.

However, markets quickly erased the gains, and BTC tapped $78,000. After some consolidation there, the cryptocurrency exploded as US trading hours began. These price gains are not isolated to crypto, as Wall Street opened well in the green.

The S&P 500 is currently up by almost 2%, while the Nasdaq and the Dow Jones have added over 2% of value. Even gold and silver are well in the green today.